


Forgive the sea, follow the tide.

by KyryeDuBarie



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Angst, Inspired by Mitski's Pearl Diver, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29765208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyryeDuBarie/pseuds/KyryeDuBarie
Summary: Keiji has been watching the spot as it comes closer and becomes more clear. “That’s a person,” he gasps. “That’s—”And then he is tearing his arm away from Konoha’s grip and jumping back in as soon as the water is deep enough, racing towards the approaching piece of wood and the suspiciously human-looking lump on top of it. This time, the water does sting his wound a little, but the feeling is there and gone.As he peeks out of the stormy waters, blinking to focus his sight; he hopes it’s not just seaweed on some piece of driftwood because he’s tired already.But it isn’t.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Miya Osamu
Comments: 29
Kudos: 288
Collections: Haikyuu Writer Jukebox Round One - Mitski





	Forgive the sea, follow the tide.

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely cannot believe this is actually coming out! This is my entry for the Hq!Jukebox event, featuring Mitski's discography. I had 'Pearl diver', and while I initially was going to do something more metaphorical... Pirate Osamu _////_
> 
> Still, this definitely wouldn't be out if it wasn't for [ Jules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxjules/pseuds/mxjules) who betaed and dealt with many a freak out when it came to this monster.
> 
> And so, onwards we go.

The water isn’t so cold this time of the year.

But it is still a sharp contrast to the warm— yet dull and cloudy— world outside, even with the morning breeze that makes the palms sway and drags little bits of dried up foliage across the white sands of the beach.

Keiji takes a deep breath and jumps, a knife plunging into the grey-blue waters; the cold isn’t even a shock to him anymore. If anything, it is as much a mothers embrace as his own mother’s ought to have been.

Here, by the cliffs, tiny in the immense expanse of the capricious ocean, he is at once free and cradled, all mighty and inconsequential. 

He’s the oldest -now the only- pearl diver of the little village of Fukurodani, after all. He’s kept diving well into his early twenties, and while that used to be common, it isn’t anymore. It doesn’t change the fact that Keiji is the one who can go the deepest and get the closest to the most jagged cliffs and reefs.

It might feel a little more like something to be proud about, but the fact is that Keiji is just the only one left. 

He spots a small shell first, sand drifting over its surface in little streams of perfectly visible grains. Outside, the sun comes out of whatever cloud was holding it captive at the very horizon line, and the world blooms with faint golden light.

The shell is too small, so Keiji passes it by, feet flapping gracefully behind him.

For so long, he’s made this his very life; though he started because it was a family tradition, and because a certain someone found the pearls pretty and smiled, sharp as a knife when Keiji would present him with one, over time, it became all he knew how to do— all he ever _wanted_ to. Over the years, he’s accumulated a decent amount of pearls. Enough that he doesn’t struggle; enough that a small shell that might not even have a pearl inside does not meet his standards, not by far. 

Further down, between tangling arms of reddish brown coral, he spots his prize— a _true_ prize. The surface of the shell, even with some sand running over it, is almost nacreous itself; just the right shade between pink and white, and it must be as big as Keiji’s hand. 

He heads for it without hesitation, minding the slow, cold undercurrent he’s swimming down into. He’s deep, almost as deep as he’s ever allowed himself to go, but his hands are sure as they reach through the coral for the shell. He has to wonder how it got there, though, because when he tugs, the openings between the coral branches are too small. 

Feeling his lungs start to burn, Keiji tugs harder, already thinking of reaching for the sharp knife strapped to the side of his hip.

In the end he doesn’t need it, the coral gives way after a harsh tug.

After so long, even Keiji is running out of breath. He rushes to the surface, breaking it with a sigh that degenerates into a large gulp of air. He turns around, and the dark stone of the cliffs is closer than he thought, so he hurries before a bad current catches him. It has happened before, and nothing is more terrifying; besides, Konoha would get mad. 

A familiar form waits for Keiji as he approaches his usual spot on the beach, tanned arms crossed in disapproval as he waits for him to arrive at the shore.

Konoha, much like most other people, thinks Keiji is far too old to be pulling dangerous, borderline inhuman things like this off. It’s out of concern, not envy, or fear, or stupid superstition, like the others, but Keiji can’t help but feel a little incensed at it. He submerges himself, just for a second, eyes wide open to take in the golden-green-blue tinted world underwater before really rushing for the older man. “Hey, hurry up! Breakfast is going to get cold.” Konoha calls, pointing at a basket by his feet.

If nothing else, he knows Keiji— breakfast is the right incentive.

“You don’t have to come here every morning,” Keiji gripes, feet touching down on the soft sand as he rights himself. “I’d still come by the inn.”

“No shit,” Konoha rolls his eyes. “You can’t cook worth anything, and you’re definitely not waking up your poor grandma at the ass-crack of dawn.”

Keiji hums, plopping down on the sand beside the older man and he begins to root through the contents of the basket. Konoha’s family runs one of few inns in the town and they make the best food out of them, which is really just saying that the food is actually edible. Over the years, he’s given them so many pearls that they refuse to take actual payment for keeping Keiji fed. “Which is why—” he interrupts himself to swallow his first mouthful of fish, “I’d come by the inn. You don’t have to babysit me, I won’t drown.”

“Hey, I get out of chores. It’s not like I’m just doing it because you refuse to be careful and keep pulling weird stunts that put you in danger.” Konoha shrugs, dropping beside Keiji and fishing out a rice ball from the basket. “You should learn to cook, though. You’re not the kinda rich folk that’s ever gonna have a cook.”

Keiji looks at the faraway skyline, the last of the night’s fading colors barely at its edge. “I’ll just marry someone who can cook,” he says, half in jest. They both know he’s rejected proposals of people who could actually provide him with a cook, passing travelers clearly rich enough to by their little backwater village out from under them twice. “Kaori-chan will keep feeding me if I don’t, anyway.”

He has never even entertained the thought.

“You take advantage of my poor sister.”

Keiji looks up at him through his wet eyelashes, with a look of mock-innocence that he knows annoys Konoha just a little. “Who? Me?” 

That gets Keiji a swift punch to the arm, and the conversation devolves into simple barbs exchanged between bites of food. This is an almost daily scene between the two of them, since Konoha decided to look after Keiji, and Keiji didn’t feel strong enough to tell him no.

It’s quiet, and comfortable, at least until Keiji sees the horizon line warp a little, a bump appearing across it that becomes larger and larger as the seconds pass, following the usual pattern of a warm current far out in the ocean that he knows all too well, which ends in the cliffs he was just swimming by. “What’s that?” He asks, because he’s always had trouble seeing clearly that far out; it’s a family thing, he figures, because his grandma has bad eyesight, and apparently, so did his mother.

Konoha’s eyes drift to the place where the thing keeps growing larger, not a dot anymore. “Beats me,” he shrugs as his eyes narrow. “’S too flat to be a boat. Maybe driftwood?” Keiji stuffs another piece of rice in his mouth and glares at the spot, interest piqued. “Holy— _Akaashi_ , you’re bleeding!” The older man cries out.

Sure enough, there’s a jagged red line going down the side of his wrist and halfway down his forearm. “Mmm. It must have been the coral.”

“You were getting into the big ones again, weren’t you?” Konoha asks, already tearing a strip off the linen in the basket. This isn’t an unusual occurrence; down in the water, Keiji focuses intensely, and sometimes he doesn’t even notice his injuries until later. The sting of the saltwater is something he’s long gotten used to. “I swear, one of this days you’re going to get seriously hurt. You _do_ remember when Bo—”

Knowing Konoha, he would have cut himself off before finishing that word anyways, because that’s one surefire way to get Keiji back in the water, with the corals, and the sun, and the silence. He doesn’t get the chance to feel guilty, though, because Keiji has been watching the spot as it comes closer and becomes more clear. “That’s a person,” he gasps. “That’s—”

And then he is tearing his arm away from Konoha’s grip and jumping back in as soon as the water is deep enough, racing towards the approaching piece of wood and the suspiciously human-looking lump on top of it. This time, the water does sting his wound a little, but the feeling is there and gone. Keiji swims swiftly, oftentimes sinking a little where he knows he can avoid the bigger corals, and he arrives beside the piece of wood soon enough. 

As he peeks out of the stormy waters, blinking to focus his sight; he hopes it’s not just seaweed on some piece of driftwood because he’s tired already.

But it isn’t.

He registers the man’s golden skin, his dark hair, only for a second. The piece of wood he’s laid on— a door, probably, or at least a piece of one— seems to be holding him up well. Keiji looks around himself and assesses his options. They’re not that far from the shore. He could swim close to it, or see if it gets there on its own. He’s learned not to trust the currents though, and it really isn’t that far.

So he starts pushing the wood along. It isn’t that large of a piece, and the man, though heavy, isn’t too large himself; he looks to be just a little taller than Keiji. By the time he’s halfway there, Konoha meets him, a look of incredulity in his eyes, his blond hair plastered to his forehead. “Do you even know if he’s alive?” he pants as he starts helping Keiji along. “What you just did is seriously dangerous.”

“I know this shore,” Keiji answers, simply. ”The current was going to take him to the cliffs.”

Konoha must at least be feeling a little guilty for the comment he nearly made earlier, because he doesn’t say anything else as they push the piece of wood and its castaway towards the beach. It turns out to be a door that they drag along the sand until it’s safely away from the licking waves, and only then does Keiji really look at the man. 

His skin is golden brown, not yet too burnt,, which means he couldn’t have been out there too long. His hair is cropped short at the sides, but plastered over his forehead in dark tendrils. He has a nose so straight it seems to have been molded by an artisans hands, and his eyelids are firmly shut, fanning short, dark eyelashes over his high cheekbones. He’s built wide, thick; his muscles are evident where his shirt is ripped and stained with blood at the chest. He can see a tattoo peeking from the tear, fanning over his left pec, taking up half of this chest.

His unmoving chest.

Keiji’s heart stutters and deflates for a second, old hurts coming back like a flash of lighting.

 _Useless_.

He sighs.

Konoha, however, turns around and braces himself over the man’s body, hands by the center of his chest and pushing down, once, twice, three times. “I think I saw him breathing on the way.” The blond explains, but there really isn’t a way that someone who has clearly drowned would just wake up. “Would you help me and turn his head?”

Keiji obeys, and as soon as he does, the man’s body jerks up suddenly with a violent jolt, almost hitting Konoha in the chin as he gags and begins vomiting seawater into the sand. 

Keiji watches the display in both awe and fear; he’s seen enough near-drownings to know this guy is alive because of a miracle, but he might not be for much longer, regardless—, drowning isn’t the only thing that can kill a person who’s been stranded at sea. 

When he clears his chest of the seawater, he seems well enough, though. Dark grey eyes like polished stones look up at Keiji, filled with confusion that quickly transforms to awe, and then, fear. “I, what the— just who in hell are ya?” he says, voice hoarse loaded with a foreign accent. “Where the fuck am I?”

He’s looking straight at Keiji, but Konoha is the one that answers him. “Fukurodani village. You’re hurt, did your ship get attacked by pirates?”

“I—” The man’s head whips around, eyes wide, but hazy as if he’s trying to smother rising panic. A second later, he’s turning back to Keiji, a feeble hand reaching for him until it wraps around his arm, so cold that he almost recoils from the feeling. “Was there someone else—” he says, earnest, even though his grip starts to grow slack by the second syllable and his shallow breaths are coming quicker and quicker. “Where’s… ‘Tsumu?” This is the last thing the man says before his eyes roll back and he passes out once again.

“Keiji, he has a wound on his leg, and,” Konoha says, peeling back the man’s shirt to expose a nasty gash at his side. “That looks _bad_.”

.

.

Everything still smells like salt.

Osamu pushes himself up sluggishly, arms trembling a little. The wound on his side throbs.

He’s in a warm, well-lit room, and as he blinks the haze of sleep and near-death out of his eyes, he realizes that he is laying under a bunch of blankets, on top of a mound of hay. There’s a pulsing heat by his feet, and when he glances down, he realizes there’s a large hearth right in front of him.

After the moment the sea all but swallowed him whole, all he remembers are eyes the same color as the rolling tide and asking for Atsumu.

He remembers not seeing Atsumu anywhere.

Osamu is sure he saw his twin going overboard after the booming of the cannon that destroyed their ship left his ears ringing. 

“Oh, you’ve woken up,” a woman says as she enters the kitchen he’s apparently been sleeping in.. Her blonde hair is in a braid down her back and a sack is thrown over her shoulder. She turns around to yell at the door she just came in through without much finesse. “Keiji-kun! Your drowned guy woke up!” The noise makes Osamu’s head throb.

Was that the person who saved him? Osamu shudders, remembering how he asked the blurry figure for Atsumu. Only now does he realize how stupid a thing that was to do. He’s stuck in an unknown place, probably on some random, out of the way island, with no crew, no ship, and a very notorious name that’s bound to bring him misfortune.

He has to think quickly; his eyes dart around the kitchen, finding a couple sharp utensils that may prove useful and a little food that he might be able to eat uncooked. At his lack of response, the woman has turned away, peeling tomatoes over a wooden slat. Osamu will just have to run past her, but she doesn’t look large or strong enough to impede him. He takes a deep breath, and surges up, wasting not a second as his feet hit the ground before going for the knife in a nearby table.

Until he realizes he’s naked as the day he was born, that is.

And he realizes because there’s a pair of unimpressed blue eyes— eyes that he remembers, despite the haze of thirst and saltwater— watching him from the doorway. “Please put down that knife,” the beautiful person says, speaking calmly despite the flush high in his cheeks. “Konoha has already given me so much shit for going out into the sea to save you.”

“Y-yer—” Osamu stutters, edging back to the lump of hay and dragging one of the blankets out to protect whatever modesty he’s got left. “Yer the one that saved me?” He can believe that. The boy, no, _man_ in front of him has a lean body, all perfectly shaped limbs covered in deceptively lithe muscle that are easily visible in the yellowed linen shirt and shorts that he’s wearing. Osamu sets his eyes on the man’s observant, lovely blue ones. “ _Yer_ the one who saved me?”

He smiles a little, all while his eyes rove over Osamu. “I did just say that,” His eyelashes flutter down and his flush softens. He reaches out to Osamu holding out a bundle of clothes. “You sure took your time waking up. It’s past dinner time, here are some clothes,” Osamu mutely takes the bundle. “My name is Akaashi Keiji. May I have yours?”

Osamu hesitates, lips tangling around the word. “M-Myaa—” is all he gets out before he clamps his mouth shut; where he is, he has no idea, but the whole archipelago knows the tales— even though most of them aren’t even true— of the Miya Twins’ exploits. This man may just turn around and sell him for the standing bounty on his head. “I—” he scrambles for something else, another identity, maybe the name of one of his long left-behind childhood friends, but his head feels foggy and he’s starting to get dizzy. “I don’t remember,” he finishes lamely while holding on to the brick edge of the hearth as he feels his head start to spin. It helps the lie at least. “Where am I?”

In a second, the man is by his side, helping Osamu lower himself down on the hay, not even glancing the way of his naked body. “This is Fukurodani village,” he explains, though Osamu has never heard of the name. “I guess that doesn’t help, if you do not even remember who you are. We’re a very small village in the south of the western Archipelago. You need to be more careful. The wound on your side looked like it must’ve bled a lot, and your leg wasn’t in good shape either.”

“Ah,” Osamu drags the blanket further over his lap. “D’ya know— I _think_ I was on a ship—” It’s better to play dumb for now, at least until he knows where he stands.

“I would hope so, since I found you clinging to a door in the ocean,” Akaashi says, standing back up. “You asked for someone then, do you remember?” Osamu shakes his head, no. “I will let you get dressed then,” Akaashi says as he heads for the door. “Kaori-chan won’t peek at you, don’t worry.”

“I can’t have this burning, I have three grown men to feed,” she scoffs from where she’s stirring a steaming pot on the stove.

And then, as silently as he came in, he walks out of the door and disappears.

Osamu can’t help but stare after the mysterious man.

.

.

The currents around Fukurodani are treacherous, which is why it was a very bad idea for Keiji to go out to get the door and it’s castaway. He knows this, better than anyone.

And Konoha knows that he knows, but he wants to be annoying and so, he’s giving Keiji the silent treatment. 

He doesn't have the patience to do so for much longer, Keiji knows, so he busies himself with helping to clean off the plates from the empty dinner tables at the inn while he waits for the inevitable scolding. 

The group of travelers that Konoha and his sister are catering to this week are all extremely rambunctious, but they’re also lightweights; by this time, they’re all snoozing away in bed. It’s better for Keiji, at least, because he gets to eat after they’ve all left and he doesn’t have to ward off intrusive questions about his diving and other chatter that he’s uninterested in. He hurries through his mindless task, wondering if the castaway will get into the few clothes Konoha conceded in lending to him, leaving quickly enough for him to escape his friend’s inevitable temper. 

“You could have been risking your life for a corpse,” Konoha grumbles from the table beside him, fingers tight around a ceramic plate. “I know you’re half-mermaid or something, but please stop doing things like that.”

“I knew I wasn’t going to get carried away.” Keiji answers mildly. “I know how the currents around here work, and you know I _hate_ to be called that.”

“Might be a little bit of truth to it,” Konoha has stopped cleaning, looking at Keiji who does his best to avoid the piercing stare. “Either that, or you’re stupid lucky.” He hesitates for a second, but Keiji sees him steel himself out of the corner of his eye. He also sees the way the man’s muscles tense.

“It’s never gonna be Bokuto, you _know_ that.”

Even after all this time— seven years, _seven_ years, _seven years—_ that name feels like a punch to his gut. Konoha knows this; Konoha was _there_ seven years ago when Keiji nearly drowned himself looking. Konoha should know better by now. Though Keiji kind of expected that particular matter to be dragged into the conversation, he is still surprised by the bitter tide of hurt that rises up his throat like bile. “If you think I don’t, you’re delusional,” He spits, glaring up at Konoha with all that he has. “I’ll start diving off the other side of the cliffs, so don’t worry. You won’t have to see any of my stupidity.”

It’s like the air in the room grows cold. Even though there’s cheery, golden, sunset light streaming through the lace curtains, even though all the furniture looks well kept and the light bounces off it. Konoha’s face crumples and Keiji doesn’t feel guilty at all. “I’m not letting you—”

“Well, at last you brought something useful from all that scavenging of yours!” Kaori’s bright voice cuts through the tension in the air. She waltzes in with a tray laden with food and the castaway on her heels. “Your friend here seems like he knows his way around the kitchen.”

Konoha’s eyebrows rise, attention snapping towards his sister and the sheepish-looking man standing behind her. The castaway looks a lot more put together after having been provided with some clothes. His dark hair is still tousled, sticking up in some places, and now that it’s drying, Keiji can tell that it’s not exactly black, but a relatively dark shade of gray. “I’m not so sure I—” he stammers, shoulders straining against the white linen shirt that Konoha provided for him. It’s tight around the chest too. The pants however, seem to be a prefect fit. “It was just something that came to me when I saw ya chopping the onions, Kaori-san.”

She laughs, walking over to the table. “Hah! Right!” She sets the food down, pulling her chair out at their usual table and snagging another from nearby, gesturing at the castaway to sit down. “And then you took the knife from my hands and cut them like a champ. Any chance you were a chef or something? Because we’re hiring. I’m decent, but I only go so far.”

“I—” The man, Myaa-san, or whatever he’s called, hesitates. “Yer all very kind,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Konoha mutters, irritated. “You can thank us by hurrying up so we can start eating. If we don’t keep an eye on him, Keiji eats us out of all the sausages.” He’s a fair guy, something which Keiji admires. In Konoha’s position, he might be a little more curt with their guest, but Konoha is mad at him, not at the castaway.

And the food thing is true.

“Yeah, and I’m serious. Even if you don’t know that much, I could use an assistant all the same.” Kaori complains, reaching out for the man and tugging on his arm insistently, until he relents and sits down. “It’s always exhausting when these big groups come through, but they’re what keeps us afloat.” She glances to the side. “Well, that and Keiji-kun’s pearls.”

Keiji snorts, finally, _finally_ reaching for the food on the tray. He’s gotten used to diving on an empty stomach, so now it only means he’s twice as hungry after he does. “Barely,” he mumbles between a bite of eggs and one of sausage. “I got a good one today, though. It’s in the bag.”

Kaori dives for the bag, but the castaway’s eyes don’t leave Keiji for a second. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet for someone that supposedly has no idea where or who he is. Calmly, Keiji meets his grey eyes. “Yer a pearl diver?” The man asks, chewing carefully on some sausage. “Thought those didn’t exist anymore.”

“I’m the last one here.” Keiji shrugs. “There aren’t enough pearls for many people anyway, and this place is hard to get to,” something shifts in the other man’s stance; something shines in his eyes. Interesting. “So it’s not like I get to sell them too often.”

“And no one’s stupid enough to brave the currents like you do,” Konoha grumbles, glaring at Keiji before shifting his gaze to the castaway. “Seriously, be glad this one’s crazy or you wouldn’t have made it off that slab of wood he found you on.”

Grey eyes shift between the two of them— sharp, smart, dangerous in a way he can't name, and Keiji recoils. All of a sudden he doesn’t trust this guy, not one bit. 

Especially when he smiles crookedly, with the confidence of someone who knows that smile can shock others into stillness. “Well then I owe ya pretty big time, don’t I, Akaashi-kun?” The man says. “I’m kinda strapped for cash at the moment, though.”

“You don’t need to pay me back for anything,” Keiji answers, breathing quickly. “Although, if you do remember anything, I’d like to hear how you ended up all the way out here. This town is pretty out of the way and the reefs around it don’t make it very accessible by sea, either.”

To his chagrin, the man doesn’t bite. “Oh, is that why ya don’t go out to sell yer pearls, cuz—” he glances at his side, at the large, opalescent pearl that Kaori is holding, eyes wide open like he just stopped himself from saying something he shouldn't. 

Which maybe he did.

Keiji blinks innocently at him. “What?”

“I dunno, it kinda seems logical,” the man shrugs, almost managing to recover his composure. "Big pearl, should be worth more, right?" 

Konoha barks out a laugh. “As we have established, Akaashi here isn’t all that logical,” he explains. "And he doesn't like to leave the island. Sometimes he sells them to some friends of ours, though. You'll meet them if you stick around, they're merchants and they're out of town right now." 

The comment stings, or maybe it's just that everything that has happened today has brought emotions that hurt and burn right to the surface of his mind. Keiji glares at Konoha, standing up with his mouth still half-full. “Would you cut it out? I’m not going to stop doing it, so stop coming by the shore if it annoys you so much.” His eyes sting, but he's not going to cry here. 

Konoha's face crumples into an annoyed frown. “Fine, drown for all I care.”

Anger bubbles in his stomach, he knows the concern is justified but he's just… tired, of _all_ of this. "I won’t,” he hisses. “And you know what, I’ll go outside.”

“Oh, you’re gonna leave your castaway for us to deal with?” Konoha snaps back, palm hitting the table hard. 

Oh, right. Keiji looks at the man who seems to be feeling very out of place here. "Can you walk?" he asks, and when the other nods, he hums. “You can come stay with me for a bit while you get better. I did pull you out of the water," he says, biting his tongue and making it a point not to look at anyone else in the face. “I’ll be outside.”

.

.

Wow, this really is the boonies.

He doesn't tell Akaashi, though, because Osamu has some decency and he doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him. He's too busy studying his surroundings, not that there's that much to study. This is a small seaside town, not very well off from the looks of the wooden houses— and the people— and the small, already closing market stalls that they walk past. 

Even the people have that look in their eyes when they walk past, wary and almost a little afraid. It must be easy to spot a stranger in their midst and Osamu isn't exactly unassuming, himself. 

From the looks of the trees, and the unbearable heat, he can tell he's much further south than he initially suspected. Osamu doesn't know if he should count himself lucky or bemoan the fact; he was, after all, not alone in the ship when the cannonball burst through the side of it, nearly drowning him. 

The pleasant aftertaste of dinner quickly sours in the back of his throat. He has to figure out where he really is; he has to find Atsumu and the others. 

"I am not in a particularly good mood," Akaashi says from behind him, and Osamu realizes he's been squinting at a map hanging from the wall of one of the stores they're walking bay— and it's not helping, because where the hell is he?— "You can come back down here tomorrow, Myaa-san, I'm tired."

Osamu turns around to meet eyes that are the same color of the sea under the quickly darkening skies. "S'rry," he says, looking down. "I thought I remembered something, but..."

The dark-haired man gives him a strange look. "I see. Shall we get going?" He asks blankly, looking away and suddenly the dark circles under his eyes stand out to Osamu.

He falls into step with the other man. He isn't feeling particularly well, either. While it's been properly treated, the wound in his leg is starting to send up shocks of pain up to his hip. "Ya look tired," he observes. "Yer friend said ya found me at sunrise, d'ya do that often?" More than trying to make small-talk, he's a little curious from what he overheard back in the tavern; someone going out to drag a castaway to the shore in this place isn't exactly safe. 

And apparently, Akaashi does it often.

"I've always preferred to dive at dawn." Akaashi hums as Osamu falls into step with him. "I used to go out with my Nana, when she was younger. She always said it was a good start to the day."

Osamu snorts, looking over the man's lithe body. He does look like a diver, thin and lean. His limbs are long, and though he's shorter than Osamu, they seem to go on for miles. "But then, the sun's barely settin' and yer already startin' to nod off." 

"Pretty much." Akaashi shrugs, "That's how island life is, especially somewhere like this, so out of the way." Osamu has to bite his lip in order not to make some comment that would absolutely blow his lie to hell and back. Somewhere along the lines of _'if only ya saw the big cities, they only come alive at night,'_ that would serve no other purpose. Instead, he feigns interest on the tropical foliage surrounding them, very much aware of Akaashi's smart eyes examining his face. "Over here," The other man says after a minute, abruptly turning to the right.

They've reached what looks like the outskirts of the town, and Osamu is fully expecting to be led into one of the tiny houses or the long, two story building that looks like it would be full of rooms for rent. 

Instead, Akaashi slips them both down a well worn, narrow trail through the foliage that grows right past the town line. "Yer house is a little out of the way," he grumbles, patting the bandage on his right leg; his side stings too.

"Oh, is your leg hurting?" Akaashi asks, unaffected. He seems to have exactly two emotions so far, annoyance and indifference, and the worst thing is that he's right about Osamu's leg. "I can take a look at it later. We’re almost there."

Osamu grumbles out a response, dodging yet another large, stemmed leaf that Akaashi doesn't seem to have found a problem elegantly evading. "It's gettin' dark is all." he huffs.

And it is— the world around them is quickly growing dark; where the foliage was a deep emerald green when they left the Konoha's inn, it's quickly being brought down into muted, purple-blue undertones. Less than an hour and it'll be pitch-dark out here, and— "Don't worry, I don't get lost. I have lived here all my life."

"Yeah, but night's where all the dangerous animals come out," Osamu grunts, which also isn't a lie. "I've no idea who I am, but even I can tell you that Akaashi."

A humorous look is thrown his way, for some reason it feels a little like a victory. "And I can tell you that there aren't any animals like that here. I don't know where you come from that you're afraid of wild animals when it's barely dark out." He smirks softly. "Just be careful not to step on any snakes. Those are around all day."

Osamu looks at his feet, worried, and he thinks he hears a chuckle, but by the time he looks up, Akaashi is as impassive as usual. The vines and leaves hanging down around them brush his hair and the sides of his face. Where Osamu is getting freaked out by every touch, Akaashi seems to embrace it.

Finally, they come out into a jagged, high outcropping of rock, that faces a wide expanse of sand a good few meters under it, and then the sea. On the outcropping stands a small, two story house. It's made of wood, and it’s clearly well-kept, with a small porch at the front and a wooden staircase that connects it with a door on the side of the house, on the second floor. Cheery lace curtains frame the windows and well cared-for flower boxes line the outer panes.

The windows of the first floor are lit from within.

"My grandmother has the lower floor, I live in the second." Akaashi explains, not heading for the staircase the way Osamu expects, but instead leading him to the front door. "This is her house too, and I'm not going to bring a stranger inside without telling her."

Well, the hand that feeds you, and all that. Osamu is lucky to be alive and nowhere close to the people who sunk his ship, so meeting some old lady is the least he can do aside from being thankful. 

The room that welcomes them is lovingly furnished and cared for. Nothing in it looks particularly expensive— which is surprising, considering the pearl that Akaashi apparently found this morning; the thing was thicker than his thumb. Even a pearl half as big would be fairly expensive, and that's coming from someone used to seeing treasures, but everything seems to have been chosen with care. The oil lamps hanging from hooks on the ceiling give the room a warm glow that makes him realize just how dark it got outside while they walked. 

"Nana?" Akaashi calls, and an older woman almost immediately peeks out of a doorway. She has Akaashi's lithe bone structure, his upturned eyes, but her hair is white as a cloud, pulled up into a bun at her nape. And she looks frail, like Osamu could knock her over with his pinky. 

Her eyebrows rise and she turns to retrieve something wooden that turns out to be a cane that she uses to approach them. "Keiji, who is this?" She squints at them. "Definitely not Konoha-kun."

"No, Nana," Akaashi says, catching her outstretched hand in his. He glances at Osamu. "Her eyesight isn't what it used to be." Then, he turns to her again, quickly squeezing Osamu's wrist with his hand. "This is Myaa-san, he's a friend of Konoha's. He's going to stay upstairs with me for a few days."

Osamu can tell by the tone, he's supposed to play along. "Nice to meet ya." He says, reaching for the woman's hand and shaking it firmly. "I hope it's not a bother."

She smiles brightly. "Where is that accent from? And you have wonderful manners. Don't worry." She laughs. "Keiji has his own floor, so he's allowed to do anything he wants with it."

"Ah—" Osamu scrambles for an answer.

"He's from the North," Akaashi interrupts quickly. "Close to Mujinazaka, right?"

Osamu laughs nervously— that's a frightfully close guess. "Right."

Thankfully, Akaashi seems to only have made a wild guess in order to fool the old woman. It would probably upset her that her grandson brought an amnesiac stranger into their house.

"Ah, does the Kyryuu family still own that town?" she asks, face bright. "I used to travel all over. What I wouldn't give to see the great waterfall again. Do you you two want something to drink? It's been so long since I've met anyone that's been north of Date!"

He and Akaashi exchange glances, but Osamu can already tell the other man can't tell this woman no. "Nana traveled a lot before she settled down here," is all the explanation he gives before following the old woman into a tiny kitchen. 

Well, this is going to be a hell of a balancing act.

.

.

Keiji emerges from the ocean into a dark day, one framed with overcast skies and swaying leaves. 

Just in time to see Konoha turn his back and leave, quickly slipping into the trees, into the path they both know well. 

He's still mad, Keiji figures.

Not that he doesn't understand; he has enough introspection to see why one of his oldest friends would get _this_ mad at him. This all has been building up for a while, years even, since _that_ happened. Keiji knows Konoha was not happy with the way he dealt with it then, and is not happy with how he emerged after, changed.

So he doesn't follow. He dries his face with the linen Konoha left and dresses quickly. The island's heat is oppressive, but the breezy shirt barely feels like anything, anyway.

Besides, he kind of burned through his luck last night during that conversation between him, the castaway and his grandmother. Both of them were able to bluff their way through it without letting the old woman doubt their story. 

He frowns as the ground beneath his feet changes from sand to rock.

Or maybe that wasn't luck at all.

At this point, he is about halfway sure that Myaa-san is faking his amnesia. 

Keiji isn't an idiot.

He ruminated about it all night, while the castaway slept like a rock on a cot in the second room of his tiny floor. 

It's not that the man gives him a bad feeling; he would have never brought him to the home he shares with his grandma otherwise, angry Konoha or not.

He reaches the wooden porch and quickly turns to the staircase— that is, before catching a whiff of something absolutely delicious wafting over from his grandmother's window. 

Huh, Kaori must've taken pity on him, knowing he wouldn't show up at the inn for breakfast just to have Konoha snap at him. 

He smiles to himself, stepping inside and quickly heading to the kitchen that he grew up in. "Nana?" He calls, but instead of Kaori and his Nana having cold lemonade together, he finds his castaway, with a shit eating grin on his face as he cooks over Keiji's grandmother's stove, looking for all the world like he's been here for longer than half a day. 

"Akaashi," he greets cheerily, half turning to him. The front lacing of the white shirt that Keiji borrowed from Konoha's father yesterday is wide open, framing the man's tan, tattooed chest almost down to his abs. "I made some breakfast, yer grandmother said ya would be hungry."

"Right on time, isn't he?" His grandmother chimes in from one of the kitchen chairs. "I know my Keiji, although I wish you didn't dive this close to a storm."

Keiji refuses to stand there, dumbfounded, wet and with a strange feeling clawing at his belly. "There's still a couple of days until it gets dangerous out there, Nana," he says as he sits on the chair beside her. He then addresses the man by the stove. "You didn't have to do this," he starts. "I was going to get some food from the town—"

"After you got into that fight with Konoha-kun yesterday?" His grandmother asks, the traitor. She may look frail as a thin slip of paper, but the woman’s mind is as sharp as ever. "Myaa-san filled me in."

The castaway shrugs. "Yer grandma's hard ta say no to." Keiji finally gets a good look at what's between his hands— a perfectly shaped onigiri. "Sides, ya saved my life and let me stay here, 's the least I can do." Keiji just glares at him. "And what are ya sayin'? That storm is comin' in, like, tomorrow."

"Aren't you a little cocky for someone with no memories?" Keiji grumbles, his eyes can't help but follow the other man's skillful hands as they shape another couple of rice balls then turn to flip the fish on the grill "And no, the storm should be here in about three days. It’s been drifting here from up north, or so the merchants say."

The castaway turns around, hands holding a plate brimming with perfect looking rice balls. Annoyed as he is, Keiji's mouth waters a little. "Hey, I remember how ta make food. Guess whoever I am knows their storms, too?" He says, with a flash of white teeth as Keiji reaches for the first rice ball. "I could bet ya we're gonna be knee deep before this time tomorrow." He's wrong; Keiji _knows_ he's wrong, but he's kind of too busy with the absolutely delectable rice ball he's just shoved whole in his mouth. "Man, ya really do have an appetite." Grey eyes shift down to Keiji's chest through the wet shirt he wears. "Wouldn't know it by looking at ya."

"That's my Keiji." His grandmother says, nibbling on another onigiri. "My, you _are_ a good cook! Didn’t you say Kaori-chan was asking around for someone to cook at the inn? You should do it—"

"Ah—" The man nervously scratches at his neck. "I dunno, I don't think I'm staying' too long?"

Finally swallowing around the rice, Keiji hums. "Oh, does that mean you've remembered something?" He narrows his eyes at the man— all his life, Keiji's been good at reading people. He’ll know if he's lying.

"Well—" There's a second, a flash of fear on the man's face and then, the smile is back. "Sorta? I think I was like, a cook? On a ship? I mean, that's kind of a given since you said I showed up clinging to a door, but..." He grips his own neck, and it feels a little exaggerated, a little calculated. "There isn't much more."

He's not exactly lying outright, but...

He's not being too sincere, either, Keiji knows. He looks the way Keiji felt just this morning, watching Konoha walk away in anger. "I see." He shoves another rice ball in his mouth. "Itshh delish—" he swallows. "I think Kaori would take you even for a few days. It always gets busier when there are storms because the inns in the other towns all get full and the ships don't set sail."

The man turns away to get a plate of grilled fish. "I'll think about it." He says. "Would ya mind showin' me the way back to the town? I wanna see if anything jogs my memory."

Keiji thinks about it for a second; on one hand, he's going to get roped into going to the inn, he just knows it. On the other, he's curious as to what exactly the castaway is going to be looking for at the town. Keiji did bring him here. "Sure," he says, lifting his hand so the pouch where he keeps his pearls is visible. "I should try and sell these too."

Sitting down in the remaining kitchen chair, the castaway gets a gleam in this eyes. "Thank ya, Akaashi."

Keiji bites into another onigiri. Maybe the castaway's tattoos don't really speak of a cook, but hell, the guy does know how to.

.

.

So it seems neither he nor Akaashi are going to be right about this.

Osamu has spent half of his life at sea; he knows a storm when it's coming, yet, it didn't start yesterday. 

Instead, he woke up to palm leaves slapping against the windows and walls of Akaashi's house. 

Akaashi's bare feet are stepping carefully around things, clearly doing his best not to wake Osamu up. He did the same thing yesterday, but with his leg still throbbing, Osamu preferred to pretend to still be asleep, he even snored for good measure.

Today, however, he's feeling a little more apprehensive, and his leg hurts a lot less.

So, he waits until the door clicks shut behind Akaashi before rising to his feet, shoving on some shoes and simply following. 

It's hard to get down the staircase with his hurt leg, and by the time he gets to the porch, he can't spot Akaashi at all. He steps off the little wooden porch and glances around. The palms are swaying dangerously— that storm is definitely going to hit today. It would be bad if his host drowned, so Osamu perseveres, squinting at the landscape until he finally spots Akaashi walking up a smooth road on the side of the cliffs.

Fuck, he's _fast_.

By the time Osamu gets up there,-and he has to limp up half of the way, his leg still isn't at a hundred percent- Akaashi's already finished stuffing his clothes into a leather bag and placing that under a heavy-looking rock. "D'ya just leave those there? Don't they get stolen?"

The man startles; today, Akaashi's eyes are almost dark grey. “No one really comes up here. I'll come get them later."

He's so calm, it's unsettling. "Oh, before or after the storm?" 

A quiet scoff. "It's not hitting today either." He says, walking over to the jagged edge.

This cliff isn't so high, at least not compared to some others Osamu has seen. Although, then again, he's seen most of the northern islands— hell, most of this Archipelago, at least according to the map he managed to take a look at yesterday while he pretended to look at cooking utensils at the market. Tag at is, except for tiny villages surrounded by coral reefs like these.

But still, Osamu wouldn't jump off of this thing unless he was being chased by a pissed off horde, and even then, it would depend on if he had a sword. And never with a storm like that looming on the horizon.

"It's hittin' today," he says. "Yer a real daredevil, Akaashi. I know this is how ya saved me, but careful goin’ far. I’m not that good a swimmer."

The other man looks out at the ocean. "I'm _really_ not," he says, face blank, eyes unreadable. "You don't need to keep an eye on me." 

And then he's racing for the edge, graceful, lean, wild, Osamu can't believe it as he stands there open mouthed. 

Akaashi's _beautiful_.

And either disturbed, or a fool, because the sea at the bottom of the cliff is dark, waves crashing dangerously against the rock .

Osamu runs to the edge and waits.

And waits.

And _waits_.

And then, after a terrifying amount of time, startling the heart out of his chest, Akaashi breaks the surface , shaking his head, and from so far away, Osamu can't see his face, but he's sure there's ecstasy in it.

Osamu has to leave this place; he _has_ to, and soon. It would be better if he does it right after the storm clears and his leg is healed. 

But as he watches Akaashi dive and dive again before heading for the beach and intrigue fills his chest, he realizes he wants to figure out this man first.

.

.

Two to three days was a long shot, really; Keiji was annoyed, so he overshot, but it might have taken that long regardless.

It does not. He could tell the moment he hit the water this morning; it was stupid to remain there— as Konoha would have told him, but Konoha is still mad— but Keiji wasn’t going to let the castaway have the last word, so he waded through waves that became more forceful every second and picked up a couple pearls from the small reefs closer to the cliff. 

When he spied Konoha shoving a linen and a change of clothes into the castaway’s hands before turning on his heels and storming off into one of the jungle paths, he knew it was the time to get out.

Some of the pale fear on the castaway’s face has eased by now, though. They’re briskly walking through the market, and Keiji is glad that he decided to sell the pearls from yesterday as he stuffs a sack with supplies.

“Yer sure that little cabin can take it? It’s not gonna be some drizzle, y’know?” The man beside him says, a gallon of lamp oil in one of his hands. He’s leaning heavily on his good leg, but then, he was the one that insisted on doing the heavy lifting. Keiji could have handled it just as well. 

He frowns up at the other, noting how his deep-set eyes seem genuinely concerned. “It’s high up enough that we shouldn’t face any flooding, and we get storms fairly frequently here. I know how to manage through one.” Honestly, he’s a little offended; even if this guy is a virtual stranger, he should have seen by now that not only does Keiji know how to manage himself and his grandmother, but he also has an eye for these things. “If you find it too daunting, you should stay with Konoha and Kaori at the inn,” he says thoughtfully.

“’M pretty sure that invitation was more for ya than me, Akaashi.” The man says, wincing as Keiji hands him a gallon of clean water to hold in his other hand, and stuffs the last bit of space in his own sack with a bag of rice. “Yer friend’s tryin’ to apologize.”

Keiji scoffs at the thought. “Kaori probably made him come and ask us,” he says. “She can get him to do anything, even when he’s mad at me. Anyway, do you need a second to rest, or should we get going?”

“It’s gonna be pouring by the time we make it there,” the man points out. “Lead the way, I don’t wanna get lost in that jungle path ya love sneaking through.”

For someone that looks so rugged— and has apparently been to many places, or so Keiji figures from the times the man has slipped up in front of him— Akaashi’s castaway is very put off by walking through a tiny stretch of jungle, even though Keiji has assured him that it’s absolutely safe, that he has been running through that path since he was five; it’s the only useful thing his parents left him. Every time they cross it, the man breaks out into a cold sweat, hyper aware of every leaf that brushes his head. Keiji has made him walk under the flowers of an Angel’s Trumpet tree, just to see him shiver. “It cuts the trip in half,” he says with a shrug. “You can take the long way around if you want, but I’m concerned your leg might give you trouble if you do.”

An unimpressed look is thrown his way, but Keiji doesn’t shrink away from it, even as he feels a first stray droplet of water hitting his nose. “Fine, but yer takin’ care of me if a snake bites me or somethin’.”

“That was a joke,“ Keiji replies flatly, turning away from the man and hauling the heavy sack over his shoulder.

“Didn’t sound like one at the time,” the other complains, falling into step with Keiji, limping as he goes. 

Keiji has come to know a couple of things about this man in the past two days; one of them is that he sulks easily, and snaps out of it just as easily, so he isn’t too concerned. At least, until he hears a gasp and sees the man fall behind him, face pale as he stares into the door of an inn at something Keiji can’t really make out from where he’s standing. “Myaa-san?”

Wide eyes turn to meet his. “It’s nothin’, I thought I remembered someone, but—” He shakes his head; he’s a terrible liar. “Lets get goin’.”

Keiji nods, partly because he’s in a hurry, partly because it doesn’t feel like he should push it. He still makes it a point to remember the building, and the angle, and promises himself he’ll check it out later, when there isn’t a storm coming their way. 

They’re quiet as they walk. Quiet and tense because the sky is slowly opening up, the few droplets barely brushing Keiji’s face and neck become a drizzle; they’ll be in a downpour soon. 

It almost is, by the time they slip into the jungle path, trying to avoid the foliage being blown at them by the strong east-bound winds. Keiji wasn’t lying when he said that the house is high enough to be safe unless the storm is particularly strong, and even then, it’s withstood it’s share of bad ones, but it’s no use that the house is sturdy and backed by a cliff if they’re not in it by the time it starts getting dangerous out here. 

Besides, word is that this particular storm is going to last a few days; that was reason enough to stock up on food and other necessities, but if they were to get caught in very strong winds, they’d surely have to abandon their loads, a thought Keiji isn’t very fond of.

But it might just be necessary if visibility gets any worse than this. 

As if on cue, the castaway nearly walks into a palm tree and manages to trip at the same time.

Keiji sighs and reaches back, circling his hand around a thick wrist. “We’re almost there, and you, I can’t carry, Myaa-san,” he says honestly, tugging the man along. “We also should get dry as soon as we can or we’re going to catch our death.”

And so, he tugs, and sets a punishing pace on the two of them— the old wound in his left shoulder twinges, but Keiji is used to that. It does that any time there’s a storm, any time it’s a smidgen too cold. 

They reach the house just as it gets bad. The cliff right behind it gives them some respite from the wind for the last few meters. Behind them, fully grown trees sway dangerously, leaves swiftly torn from them at random, and the sky is a dark grey that makes it look like it’s late, even though it’s barely mid-afternoon. Keiji’s mind drifts to the clothes he left at the top of the cliff this morning— he’s not going to see those again, is he?

His grandmother isn’t fond of storms either, so Keiji hauls his own sack into her floor and immediately heads for her bedroom. The other man doesn’t follow him.

She dismisses him quickly, chiding Keiji for dripping water on her dry floor, so he grabs some fruit from the sack and heads back outside, where he finds the castaway half naked, wringing the water out of his clothes carefully, nothing but his braies and the bandage covering the wound on his side protecting his modesty.

It’s not the first time Keiji has seen him half-naked or even naked, but now he mildly trusts the man, and is also not afraid he’ll suddenly keel over and die, so he looks. 

_‘If he’s just a cook, I’ll eat my pearls,_ ’ is what he can’t help but think after the initial shock wears off. There’s a large array of tattoos coming down from the man’s left shoulder, down to well below what Keiji can see; they’re varying in color, and line thickness, and quality. Keiji knows nothing about tattoos, but he could bet those weren’t all done at the same time.

There’s script in languages he can’t decipher, then in one he can, several compasses, a fox. 

“Can’t hang the clothes out here today,” the man says, turning away, and Keiji spies a dab of pink on his cheeks. “And nothin’ is gonna dry with this humidity.”

He has a point, of course, and Keiji has to look away then because clearly, the man is explaining himself because he caught Keiji staring. Shyly, he turns away and undresses as well; his shirt and breeches are dripping, and it takes some time for him to be able to conscientiously wring the water out. “Oi, Akaashi?” He hears the other say, voice low, loaded with curiosity. It would not be smart to turn around and meet the man’s eyes, and Keiji is still nearly naked; even his own braies are sticking to his skin with wetness, so he makes a non-committal sound to let the man know he’s listening. “I was wondering’, that day I woke up I kinda overheard ya fightin’ with Konoha while I was gettin’ dressed—”

It must be that he sees Keiji stiffen, because he stops talking, a pit opens at the pit of his stomach as he throws the most disdainful look he can over his shoulder. “So?”

“Look,” the man says, and Keiji hates how it sounds like he’s placating him or something equally ridiculous. “I jus’ heard a name that sounded familiar, ya don’t have to tell me anything ya don’t what to.”

Ah, so that’s how he’s going to play it. There’s no way this man knew Bokuto from anything, he’s probably just lying to satiate his own curiosity. Keiji turns around, eyes hard. “Well, what was it? The name,” he says, although he knows just what he’s talking about. 

Taken aback, the man’s mouth falls open, producing no sounds for a second. “Bokuto,” he answers, short and clipped. “Who’s Bokuto?”

Yeah, definitely trying to get Keiji to talk about things he has no interest in remembering. There’s no way for the castaway to know that, so Keiji forces himself to not be as hostile as he could. “Someone you _definitely_ never met,” he says icily, gathering his still sodden clothes into his arms. “Someone that has been dead for a while.” And then he storms up the stairs, swinging the door to his floor open and immediately heading for his bedroom, slamming the door shut and locking it, all in one breath.

Over the years, he’s gotten fairly good at blocking out the events of _that_ day, so it’s the stunned, regretful look in the castaway’s eyes that haunts him to sleep.

.

.

Pissing off the person putting a roof over his head just for a bit of curiosity isn’t worth it.

And goddammit, Osamu has manners.

His twin would disagree, of course, but Atsumu isn’t here— hell, he’s not sure Atsumu is _anywhere_ anymore. He’s definitely found no leads where he or the crew might be now, but that’s something Osamu doesn’t need to think about right now, not while in this tiny wooden house on a rock, hearing the wind outside howl and throw bits of plant matter at the wall, with the most inconceivably kind yet strange person Osamu has ever met.

And see, that’s _something_ , because Osamu has met some very bizarre characters. 

Not to mention, Akaashi _also_ happens to be one of the most beautiful people he’s met, and that is, again, something to be said.

This is why Osamu tiptoed out of his cot this morning, braving the hateful winds outside to go downstairs, to make something quick for Akaashi’s grandma to find when she wakes up. Then, he climbed back up and rooted through the tiny, clearly unused kitchen on Akaashi’s floor until he got enough utensils to make something halfway decent.

Growing up with Atsumu, he never quite got the hang of apologizing verbally, seeing as he refuses to do so to someone that will always hold the ten minutes between their births over Osamu’s head. But he does know how to make an amazing apology meal, even if the utensils and the products he has at hand are somewhat limited.

Guilt is good for the imagination, especially when he apparently brought up a very beloved dead person while in his braies to someone who has been nothing if not accommodating and nice all this time. Even if the name did sound a little familiar back at the inn, he had no right.

The filleted fish is sizzling in the pan, filling the room with a mouthwatering aroma; that’s when Akaashi finally comes in, rubbing at his tired eyes. 

So it seems, when he’s not damn near drowning himself, the man is a late sleeper. “Wha—?” He glances at the window, at the dark sky outside, it could be anywhere from dawn to dusk. “Why are you—” he stammers, taken aback and hazy eyed. Osamu likes this Akaashi, if only because for once, the diver seems younger than him, which he’s sure Akaashi is. “What about—”

“I made something for yer grandma too, don’t worry. She’ll find food out on the counter when she wakes up.” Osamu takes a step towards the other, clapping a hand over Akaashi’s bony shoulder. “Sit or it’s gonna get cold.”

Akaashi just nods, yawning and rubbing at his face again like he can’t figure out why this is happening or that it is at all. “Mghh—” He grumbles, and Osamu could try to decipher the nonsensical sound, but he settles for placing some pickled vegetables in front of the other man and turning to get the fish out of the pan. “You didn’t have to do this.” Akaashi finally rasps out, he’s got his mouth half-full when Osamu turns around again with the plated fish. “I was rude to you yesterday, but in my defense, you were invasive.”

Osamu plops down in the only other, rickety chair. “I struck a nerve,” he says, picking up a piece of radish with his chopsticks. “Yer reaction was normal, I won’t pry anymore.”

“Won’t you?” Akaashi asks sourly, eyes on his plate.

“I won’t,” Osamu insists. “‘s none of my business, anyway.”

The other man doesn’t say anything else, merely picks at his food, eating with none of the enthusiasm he displayed that first morning. With nothing else to do, Osamu follows Akaashi’s lead, picking his food into little pieces before perfunctorily bringing it to his mouth. He only feels like he can look up again when the unmistakable itch of being watched washes over him, and his curious gaze meets Akaashi’s searching one. “Well, thank you then.” Akaashi says, eyes dark, and blue, and sad. “I don’t want to talk about that, so…”

“Yeah,” Osamu agrees, even though the curiosity is making his teeth hurt. Akaashi has gone from impassive to devastated since he decided to open his stupid mouth, so at least for now, he can swallow the stupid interest down. 

And he does, except now, the room is so quiet and so cold, and the rain outside hasn’t stopped and definitely won’t do so soon. He clears his throat. “So what d’ya do when it’s suicide to go outside and dive?” he hums thinking about it for a second. “Well, even more than usual.”

Akaashi seems a little taken aback by the question; he glances around the room. “I read, I guess,” he says, almost inaudible. “Though it’s not easy to get books here, so my choices are limited.”

Osamu blinks at him for a second— that’s not something he expected. “Is that so? I’ve never seen ya with a book.”

“They’re in my room,” Akaashi answers and his shoulders relax a little. “I guess I could lend you one, seeing as we’re probably not going to be able to go outside today… or tomorrow.”

Neither of them needs to look out of the window to know that he’s right, with the rumbling of thunder that follows Akaashi’s words like a warning. Osamu shakes his head. “Not much for those, unless you can read to me or somethin’. I bet that’d make it more interesting.”

The other man tilts his head to the side, lips shiny with oil form their meal. “How so?”

It’s stupid that the little gesture gets to him so much. Osamu knows that objectively, Akaashi is kind of more beautiful than most people he has ever met; if someone were to tell him the other is a water nymph disguised as a human, he’d totally see it being true. “I dunno,'' he says, feeling heat race to his ears. “Yer voice is nice, and I get sleepy when I read fer too long.” Under the table, his knee is suddenly bouncing of its own accord, Osamu wills it to still with a glare, and only then looks up at Akaashi. “Not like ya have to, I’ll find somethin’ to do. Maybe count the floorboards or somethin’.”

A light chuckle escapes the other man, lips stretching into the closest thing to a genuine smile he’s ever seen from Akaashi. “You’re probably going to get bored. Unless you go down to talk to Nana, but she likes to do her knitting around his hour.” He hesitates for a second. “We could take turns, but there really is nothing else to do.” Now, that was something Osamu did not expect; he stiffens in his chair. Akaashi coughs. “The food is really good, by the way.”

At that, he can’t help but smirk. “I know,” he says, before he can stop himself, and Akaashi looks at him funny. “And I’d love ta, though ya might have to kick me awake a couple of times. 

Akaashi doesn’t smile again, but a little of the tension melts from his shoulders, and to Osamu, it feels better than a laugh.

.

.

The morning after the storm clears up, the sky is a clear, powder blue.

The sea is calm outside and Keiji can feel it in his bones before he even opens his eyes. He’s missed diving so much that he almost stumbles over one of his shoes as he gets out of bed. Three days may not be much for some people, but for Keiji— having been cooped up in these wooden walls— it feels like it’s been that long since he even drank any water.

It wasn’t a wholly unpleasant three days, though, the thinks as he tiptoes past the castaway in the guest room. For all that the other complained, he has a nice reading voice and gets way into books when he’s actually kept awake for long enough to get attached to the characters.

Keiji has read every book in his collection at least five times— he doesn’t have that many books to choose from at the town, and he rarely ventures out of it— but switching with the other man between chapters, just laying back and letting the cadence of someone else's voice submerge him in the stories, made them feel fresh somehow.

Still, he thinks as he all but runs up the cliff side path, avoiding tiny bits of tree branches and random leaves that the storm threw over it, he’s missed diving; he needs it.

And so, he soars through the air, pouch tied to his right ankle, barely a slip of cloth covering his modesty.

And then the sun comes out, just as he breaks the surface and is thrust into pure color and life. Keiji grew up diving— his eyes don’t sting, not even a little.

He finds two big pearls, before the sun becomes too bright and his shoulder starts throbbing. He wades to the beach on the other side of the cliff, almost lazy, enjoying the cool water until his eyes spot two figures sitting on the sand , quietly exchanging words with each other. One is, of course, the castaway, looking rugged and carefree at the same time. The other is Konoha.

Konoha who doesn’t walk away when Keiji approaches this time. 

On a closer inspection, Keiji can make out the pasty white tone of his friend's skin and the dark circles under his eyes. "What do you look like that for?" Keiji asks, dropping down to sit in the middle of the two men. "Did you and Kaori spend the whole storm drinking again?"

A wry, but thankful glance is thrown his way. Konoha chuckles. "I wish— we had this group of pilgrims come in at the last minute and they're the biggest pain in the ass to ever step into an inn, you included." He snorts at Keiji's affronted look. "Apparently, the storm put them out of transportation,” he sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “Also, Yukie and Komi are back."

Keiji smiles at him; he can only imagine. Those outdoorsy types— like himself— do get quite stressed when cooped up in an inn with twenty more people. "Did they?" He asks, before turning to the castaway. "Yukie and Komi are two friends of ours. They trade in the other islands." He turns to Konoha again. "They took a while this time."

"Well, that tiny boat of theirs would have sunk in the storm." Konoha hums, and then he turns to the castaway. "So, what do you say? Kaori's about to go nuts."

Keiji turns to look at the man. "What?" He asks, tilting his head to the side as the other's cheeks tinge with pink.

"Apparently Kaori-san could use some help in the kitchen." Dark grey eyes— so dark that they don't change color, even with sunshine and the brilliant blue of the sea today— meet Keiji's. "I can't keep mooching off of you, and I'm going to need money for when I le— if I ever manage to remember." 

Now, Keiji is not an idiot; at this point, he believes the castaway's amnesia as much as he believes in water nymphs or mermaids. It does seem like the man might have a good reason for pretending, though— it's in the way he walks, in the near-healed wounds in his leg and side that were definitely made by a blade. He's been nothing but non-threatening so far, though, and Keiji did pull him out of the ocean, so he feels a little responsible. 

He does have to check out that inn that seemed to so unsettle the man. "Well, it's a good idea. It’s going to be a shame, though. Nana loves your cooking."

A hint of a smirk grazes the other man's mouth. "I can still make her breakfast, if yer lettin' me stay," He looks away. "But I’m sure there's a place in town, too—"

Keiji shakes his head, looking out at the sea as he sighs. "No, you can stay." He draws his knees up to his chest, all too aware suddenly of the fact that he's dripping water, and he’s so close to being pressed into the castaway's side that he can feel the warmth radiating from his body. "She would be sad if you go."

"Ah," the man swallows hard. "Thanks."

An uncomfortable silence descends over them until Konoha clears his throat. "Shall we go then, Myaa-san?" his eyes shift to Keiji for a second. "You should come, too. I'm sure the guys want to see you too." He looks a little regretful— it's an expression that Keiji knows all too well. This is not the first time that they have fought over the whole incident from seven years ago, and to be completely sincere, going out to swim with a storm on the horizon isn't even the most stupid thing Keiji has done when feeling particularly put off. "Kaori has been on my case about apologizing, too."

Keiji raises his eyebrows at him. "And this is you apologizing?"

"It's the best you're getting. You know I stand by what I think, but I was still wrong to bring it up that way." 

That's more of an apology. Keiji hums. "Alright." He picks at the sand by his feet. "I will drop by later, I have to run a couple of errands first."

Both men nod, even though the castaway hesitates. He's basically been glued to Keiji's side out of convenience since he literally got carried here by the currents. 

In the end he doesn't say much; he and Konoha bid Keiji their goodbyes and leave him to warm up a little under the early-morning sun.

It takes Keiji around half an hour to gather himself and circle back to the house for some clean clothes. For some reason, he feels like he's walking into a situation he should definitely avoid.

Still, it's not like Keiji could just ignore everything and take things as they come. He’s too curious, and he's already made up his mind to at least go look for that inn, even if it might just be a dead end.

And so, he does.

The market streets are fairly empty this early; not all the usual stalls are set up yet, not right after a storm.

Better for him— this way, he has to deal with way less people giving him side glances and flinching away. These last few days, he's been able to hide behind the presence of the castaway; to be walking around alone again reminds him how things usually are.

People are _such_ idiots.

Having lived in this three-street town all his life, he easily finds the run down wooden building, hesitating outside of the door. 

Perhaps he shouldn't— perhaps these past few days were a lot more tolerable than usual. He didn't even consider just going out to sit in the storm to feel some water on his skin. If there's something in here, that might change things. Does Keiji really want to see it?

When he’s about to step inside, he hesitates.

.

.

As soon as Akaashi gets back to the inn, his friends drag him away to the second floor.

This doesn't bode well.

Osamu knows what fear looks like on someone else's face, and that's exactly what he saw in the faces of Akaashi's merchant friends. It's no surprise— this may be the very butt of the world, but even here, he's spotted a wanted poster with his face on it while out in the town. Well, _technically_ it's Atsumu's face, nice thing about having a twin, he figures, but these people have actually been to more civilized places as of late. 

He should start looking for something to defend himself with, or maybe some money.

"Hey, are you done already?" Kaori is standing at the foot of the stairs, leaning on the wooden bannister, her russet eyes are glinting. "My, for someone with such big hands, you sure are swift."

Osamu shrugs, turning his face away. "Well, I'd say it's muscle memory," he shoots her a wry smile. "But I have no idea, so yer gonna have to take me as I come." He studies her face carefully, but her laidback grin doesn't change at all, if anything it gets wider.

"Hey, I'm not complaining. I almost lobbed off a thumb last week." She stretches, then starts walking towards him, her heavy apron and skirt swishing as he goes. "I'll even give you one of the small rooms upstairs. Cooking really isn't my forte."

The one reason Osamu is considering taking this job is that it will probably be a lot easier to find information on Atsumu at the others while working here instead of anywhere else. This is, after all, what looks to be the most popular inn out of the four the town has, and travelers are always the best source of information when it comes down to sunken ships and other gossip. By that logic, he should take the offer— it's all the more time for him to plan and look for information. 

But...

As if summoned, that's the exact moment in which Akaashi and his friends decide to come down the stairs; the short, brown haired one that they introduced to Osamu as Komi has him in a headlock, one of the fingers in his opposite hand poking at Akaashi's ribs. 

They all look relaxed — happy, even. Maybe Osamu misjudged everything. "Havin' fun?" He asks, and through a bright smile, Akaashi scoffs.

"Hardly." And Osamu has rarely seen him smile like that, it's a little... maybe _disarming_ isn't the right word, but he has no idea which other he could use. "Are you taking the job then?" he asks, gesturing at the stack of peeler potatoes and chopped vegetables behind Osamu.

"Oh, he is!" Kaori interrupts. "I was actually offering him one of the rooms upstairs. We don't want him getting lost on the way to your house after dinner, do we?"

Akaashi's face freezes, and though his grin remains, it's a lot less genuine now. "No, you wouldn't," he says, before his lips press into a thin line. "Although, I wouldn't mind coming here a little more often in the afternoon." He turns to Konoha, who has been observing the exchange with barely concealed amusement. "Konoha might be mad."

"He’s not the one I was mad at," Konoha chirps in, pushing himself up to sit on the counter. "It would be fine by me."

All eyes in the room land on Osamu, who coughs awkwardly. He meets Akaashi's eyes which are at the same time sad and not at all surprised. "I'd love ta take the job. He says I'm no freeloader, ya know?" He says, glancing at Kaori who looks like the cat that got the cream. "But I like my current accommodations, if Akaashi isn't sick of havin' me around." 

"No—" Akaashi blurts out, too fast to be casual. "I mean, it's nice to have company," he amends— too little, too late. 

"Well then." Osamu doesn't fight down his urge to smile; he doesn't feel like he has to anymore. 

"Well then." Akaashi responds. 

. 

. 

This is not really helping his goal as much as he thought it would.

Granted, Osamu has been working here for all of three days, and they have been— according to Kaori, at least— the busiest three days this year, so maybe he should just hang on to hope, and hope he won't slice his thumb open again while trying to catch a conversation happening just outside of the kitchen.

If he had another option that wasn’t sitting here, washing dishes while he watches Akaashi and his friends eat at a pace that should not be possible for humans, he would take it… probably.

But he’s not going to dwell on whether he would or not right now; there is no other choice that he’s willing to take. He has no money and no idea where to start looking for his comrades. When they were sunk, they were in the high seas, having set course from Shiratorizawa to the Eastern islands more than a week earlier, and they were in a particular part of the sea well known for being anything but friendly to pirate and marine alike.

So Atsumu and the rest of his crew might be anywhere— most likely, the bottom of the sea. 

And while the option of stealing Akaashi’s pearls had crossed his mind once or twice— even just a handful would be enough to at least get to a decent port, and Akaashi has a trunk full— Osamu can’t help but feel terrible at the very thought.

Who’d have thought after more than ten years of being a pirate, he’d grow a conscience?

But then again, maybe it’s just that he owes the pearl diver a life debt, and even among pirates— at least the kind of pirate that he considers himself to be— that means something. 

“We can do that tomorrow, Myaa-san!” Someone cries from behind him and an arm falls around his shoulders. Komi, he has learned, is the most effusive in Akaashi’s group of childhood friends. “Come drink with us! Your boss approves.”

He looks back, and there is Kaori, nodding , cheeks already flushed, a glass of port sitting pretty beside her empty plate. “It’s bad enough that you wouldn’t have dinner with us. Come on, Keiji-kun wants you to come too.”

She glances at Akaashi, who is sitting on the other side of the small table in the corner that, Osamu has quickly learned, is a favorite of the little group. It has chairs on one side and a plush-looking sofa upholstered in green velvet on the other. Akaashi’s lips thin into a tight line as he sinks further into that velvet. “See, there’s even room for you to sit beside him, come on! Boss’ orders.”

“Dad is going to kill us,” someone grumbles, taking wobbly steps down the wooden ladder that leads to the storeroom above the kitchen. “This is his good rum,” Konoha mutters, holding two dusty bottles to his chest. 

“It’s been his good rum since we were born,” his sister shoots back, taking the moment of distraction as an opening to get up, grab Osamu by the wrist and drag him to the table until he has nothing else to do but sit down beside Akaashi. “He’s never gonna drink it and we have Keiji’s birthday to celebrate today.”

“Damn storm didn’t leave us time to get anything good from Karasuno, either,” Yukie hums.

"So, I mean, we might as well. It’s not like your dad is around enough to notice since he's been going to that monastery," she says, glancing at Konoha whose face turns sour.

"Please don't mention those swindlers," Kaori scoffs. "He gets all up in a tizzy about it, but Dad has kind of needed the company since Mom died, even if they are..." she trails off as she pulls a bunch of glasses out of one of the wooden cabinets.

Akaashi snorts beside Osamu. "Swindlers?" he asks, scooting a little further into the armrest of the couch and a round of giggles fills the table.

A glass is set in front of each of them, and Konoha busies himself by pouring everyone a generous round of the amber liquid. It's strong; Osamu can smell it from where he is and it strikes his heart with homesickness for his ship, for his brother, for the crew that stood by them for years of Atsumu's recklessness and Osamu's moods— for his captain.

"Hey, don't go getting all hazy eyed on us already," Komi laughs, leaning from the chair where he's sat on the short end of the table to clap a warm hand over Osamu's shoulder. "Why don't you have dinner before you dig into that?" He says, dragging Osamu's glass a little further from him on the table.

"Yeah, we don't want you passing out," Yukie chirps, just as Kaori arrives with the plate of dinner he set aside for himself earlier. "Right? Today's Akaashi's birthday, so we’re going to drink until we lose our minds." It's said with cheer, but Osamu is thankful for the gesture anyways. 

He does have to bite his tongue though so that he won't give away the fact that he could very well drink both those bottles dry and only be tipsy at most. Some things, they don't need to know; it helps keep his life here peaceful, even if he's never fully at ease with the fact that one of them might figure out who he is at any moment. "Why thank ya, Kaori-san. Does that mean I'm carryin' that one back through the jungle tonight?"

Konoha laughs. "Nah, no way, you're staying here," he shoots a knowing glance at Akaashi. "You do not wanna see how this one is when drunk." Over the past couple of weeks, the animosity Konoha expressed in response to Akaashi's going out to swim with a storm less than three hours away has dwindled, but the man is no less sour for it.

"My," Osamu says, grinning wide as he turns to look at Akaashi's reddened cheeks. "Now I wanna hear just why he has that kinda reputation."

"Oh, many things!" Kaori says, laughing. "He gets very, very stubborn."

"And he'll try to swim, even if it's in a puddle!" Komi chirps in. 

By now, Akaashi is red up to his ears, his bottom lip pushes out. "I have no idea what they're talking about," he says, glaring down at the hands he has folded neatly on his lap. "You're all exaggerating."

Konoha is the one that delivers the final blow; he leans in close, handing Akaashi his glass and taking his own between long, thin fingers. "So you don't remember that time you jumped into a pond when we were sixteen?"

"I—" Akaashi flushes, before his eyes glaze over with nostalgia. "I was sixteen, and Bo—" His eyes widen again, instead of continuing the sentence, he lifts the rum to his lips and downs the cup in one gulp.

This happens often enough that Osamu knows not to ask, and he knows exactly what name Akaashi was about to say. 

"Hey, man, we all love you even if you're a nut case that wants to be a mermaid," Komi says, breaking the awkward atmosphere with a smile.

"Better that we stay here, then," Osamu adds, studying Akaashi's face closely as he speaks. "I have a hard enough time keepin' ya outta the water when yer sober."

Everyone else laughs, Akaashi just looks at him blankly for a second. "I should kick you out," he says, but there's humor in his voice. "You freeloader."

"Yer too attached to my food," Osamu shoots back, smugness radiating off his smirk as he leans back into the plush leather, bringing his plate with him. "What did ya do before I washed up on the shore, eat everything raw?"

"He mostly freeloaded off of us," Kaori says, sipping at her rum. 

Akaashi's glass has been filled again; by whom, Osamu doesn't know. He wasn't paying attention, not with Akaashi's warmth radiating off the other man right next to him— not with the embarrassed pout on his face. "I hate you all,” he says, throwing back this glass like its water too, and Osamu is transfixed.

Yeah, that's a problem too, or it's going to be soon. 

"But we love you!" Yukie calls, raising her own glass in a toast that Osamu partakes in. The rum burns his throat pleasurably as it goes down. 

"Yeah, we do," he mutters, voice low, and though Akaashi stiffens, he gives no other indication of having heard.

Osamu serves himself another shot after that. He’s been beating himself up over this every day as he cooks endless meals at the inn and during those long stretches of time before he goes to sleep at night. Basically, any moment he's not agonizing of the fact that no one seems to even know his ship sunk at sea with his brother and all the people he called a family for ten years. "How old are ya anyways?" He says, clearing his throat.

Akaashi, on his third— fourth?— shot, coughs. "I'm twenty-two," he says quietly.

The answer snaps Osamu out of his thoughts fir a second. "Oh," is all he manages to say. Akaashi's five years younger than him. 

Somehow, all that does is make him all the more appealing.

.

.

Keiji is very much aware that he was just dancing on top of a table to non-existent music; he also knows full well that he just fell off of said table.

His body, however, isn't cooperating in doing the most rational thing now, which would be to get up.

It probably has a lot to do with the fact that the castaway, _his_ castaway— whose name he thinks he knows, but he doesn't want to say it, even in his mind, just to himself— is hovering over him, worry evident on his face despite his alcohol-reddened cheeks. "Hey, fuck, I think he hit his head. Can ya hear me, Akaashi?" The man asks.

"Yeah," Keiji hears himself say, with a voice much higher than he usually would. "I am fine."

"Yer on the floor," the castaway points out, before grabbing Keiji by the arm and lifting him like he's made of leaves and hollow wood. "C'mon, we're gonna give ya some water, and yer not touchin’ the rum again tonight."

Keiji is about to rebuff him. Who does he think he is, to say things like that? But when his left heel touches down on the floor, it sparks white hot pain all the way up his calf. "Fuck, ow. _Fine_ ," He's lowered gently on the sofa, a large glass of water set between his hands a second later. Beside him, the castaway is staring, with eyes the same color as the cliffs Keiji grew up beside. "Why are you," Keiji jams a finger into the man's linen-covered chest. "So sober? Is it because you're a pirate, Myaa-sam?"

"Great, he sounds sleepy," he hears Konoha say from the foot of the sofa, where he's apparently been inspecting Keiji's ankle. "And he definitely sprained this. Careful, he's gonna fall asleep on you, Myaa-san."

Shooting him a dirty look, Keiji scoots closer to the warm body beside him on the couch. "No, I'm not." He has to fight the urge to stick out his tongue like some toddler.

"Well, it's not like we're goin' home tonight," The man says, just as Keiji begins to feel his eyelids grow heavy. When he looks up, he's met with the most intense, conflicted gaze he's seen the castaway produce to date. "And 'm a cook, Keiji-kun, not a pirate."

Something warm snakes around his waist then, warm and solid. His ankle throbs, but he's warm, he feels nice.

This is nice.

.

.

"Well, he's definitely taken to you easily," Konoha says, after they've made sure Akaashi's sound asleep, half-leaning on Osamu's chest. "I haven't seen him be this comfortable with anyone since Bokuto."

There's a glint in Konoha's eye, and Osamu, who grew up with a master of passive-aggressive manipulation like his captain, only lifts his glass at the man, humming in appreciation. "This is good rum, where did yer dad even get it?" He says, looking over at Komi and Kaori, who are slumped in their chairs. "I ain't seen anything like this around this town."

"I wouldn't know, those bottles were at least as old as us." Konoha hiccups; he's drunk, and he's trying not to show it. It's obvious to someone like Osamu, though, who simply makes the most disinterested face he can and drains the glass. His shoulder is starting to hurt from the weight placed on it, though, so he slowly maneuvers Akaashi so he's laying on Osamu's lap instead of straight on his shoulder. Osamu can feel the other man growing impatient on the chair he dragged over after Akaashi fell. "Are you really not gonna ask? That's cold," he says, finally dropping all pretense.

"Last time I tried, I made 'im cry," Osamu says, his only explanation, one of his hands is resting on the curve of Akaashi's waist, stroking over the faded green of the shirt the younger man is wearing. "Besides, I don't wanna hear it from ya."

Konoha makes a face; he looks out at all of his friends, in various states between groggy and passed out. "Well, aren't you a gentleman?” He says, with a drag of annoyance to his voice. "I guess you would know about keeping secrets, Myaa-san, but I kinda need you to know a couple of things before you go and fuck my best friend up."

Osamu can almost feel the vein that pops up on his forehead. The only reason he doesn't raise his voice is because Akaashi is sleeping and he doesn't want him to wake up to this particular situation. "Yer best friend? Hard ta believe, with how ya wouldn't even speak to him the other day, huh?"

"Because everybody else lets him do stupid things!" Konoha sighs, exasperated. "The last thing I want is for another of my childhood friends to drown just because everyone else is either too afraid of him or loves him too much to say anything."

Responsibility— it's a word that Osamu knows well. It’s what he sees all over Konoha's face then.

He could ask right now, just to satiate his curiosity, but Akaashi might wake up any moment. 

He doesn't want to disrespect the other like that, anyway, so he focuses on another part of what Konoha just said. "What do you mean, being afraid of Akaashi?" He asks, not noticing how his hand stills on the sleeping man's side.

"Come on, you're not stupid," Konoha says, with a low, bitter laugh. "You've seen how the people in the village look at him. Those stupid, backwards idiots wouldn't know a shark from a swordfish and they think—" He stops, noticing the confusion that has dawned on Osamu's face. "Wait, you have realized, haven't you?"

Osamu stops to think; he wades through the warm haze of his own mind. He's barely buzzed, but it's been a long day and he's sleepy. "Well, whenever he’s with me, I'm the one getting the weird stares, so..." he trails off.

Konoha sighs. "Well, how about when you're alone. Do you get stared at then?"

The bottle on the table is still a quarter full, Osamu stretches to grab it, and takes a swig. "Less," he says, suddenly uneasy.

"You know we don't get that few travelers, Myaa-san," Konoha says, as if warning him.

"Yeah, but why would anyone be afraid of him?" Mesmerized, maybe, distracted, intimidated, Akaashi looks like a sea god, like one of the merfolk that Osamu hopes to never see again— mostly because he spent six hours chained to Atsumu and Suna in the very bowels of their ship and he's been scarred since. He’s tantalizing and anyone would stare at him.

But not with fear, and not with hostility; at least, he doesn't _think_ so. 

Konoha's palm slaps against his own forehead. "Sometimes I think you really don't—" he cuts himself off. "They think he's some sort of—" He gestures wildly around his head. "I don't even know, okay? Apparently, some idiots with seaweed for brains decided they hated his mother way back in the day, kept saying she was a sea witch, or a mermaid, or something. Said she took Akaashi's father into the sea and that's why those two bums disappeared." He takes a look at Osamu. "You didn't know about that either, did you? What do you two even talk about in that cabin?"

Osamu shrugs. "Books, mostly. And food." He looks down at Akaashi's peaceful sleeping face. "So, what did happen with his parents?"

"They're scum." Konoha hisses. "They just up and got bored of him one day when we were young, and that's the truth. They left Miyuki-san and Akaashi here to starve. They would have, if it wasn't for the pearls. Even back then he was already a great diver, and she was a legend at it."

Taking a deep breath, Osamu allows the fingers of his other hand to gently start brushing against Akaashi's scalp. "Then, they think he's some sort of mermaid?" He snorts. "Ha, they wish, they'd all be dead by now."

"Like I said, seaweed for brains. No— sand, that's better. Seaweed is actually alive." Konoha laughs. "But yeah, they buy his pearls and trade with him because they think they might get cursed. But otherwise, they avoid him. It wasn't so bad before Bokuto, but then they started blaming Akaashi for that, too."

He's circling back to that same topic, like there's something he can't justify saying unless Osamu asks. And right then, overcome with hatred for the idiots who would treat someone like that, and pity for the man on his lap, Osamu almost does.

But then Akaashi stirs, leaning up into the touch of Osamu's fingers on his scalp. "Still not gonna ask," he says with a pointed glare. "I take it we're sleepin' here?"

Defeated, Konoha sighs. "Well, if you don't want to wake him up... That sofa isn't all that big."

To be truthful, it's not just that Osamu doesn't want to move Akaashi; he doesn't want to move _from_ Akaashi. "I've slept in worse places," he says, grinning up at Konoha as the blond stands. 

By now, he's almost sure at least this man is onto him. It’s all over his little sharp comments.

So he's not going to waste energy he doesn't have on pretending; it's bad enough that this certainty sets off a timer before everyone else knows.

Before everyone else knows, or before Osamu leaves.

.

.

The first sober thought that comes to Keiji's head when he wakes up is that the position the castaway is in must make his back hurt like hell; the second is, quite literally _'Ow.’_

His ankle is on fire and his head feels like his brain is trying to run away through his ears.

The man he's lying on, is still asleep in contrast; he's half sitting, half-laying on the green velvet couch, with Keiji on top of him, curled up like some sort of marine serpent, resting under a muscled arm like he belongs there.

He remembers enough of last night to know what probably happened, so he isn't embarrassed, or at least not overly so. 

But he _is_ concerned.

It shouldn't feel so good to be where he is, even with the headache, even with the fucked up ankle. 

The faint sunlight that creeps over the castaway's face, over Keiji's body, makes him feel like he's never been warm before, not really, and Keiji knows he has to get out. 

One slide of his legs to the floor, however, makes it fairly obvious that he's not going to be able to do it alone. "Shit," he curses under his breath, and it's loud enough to make stone-gray eyes flutter open.

"Yer awake," the other man says. "Don't try ta stand on that foot alone, I was sure ya broke it for a second last night."

Keiji winces. "I can see why," he says, already regretting drinking the damn rum. This is going to mean at least three days out of the water. "Will you please help me home? Ishould check on Nana."

"Don't ya want some breakfast first? I can whip up something quick here," he offers, but Keiji is already shaking his head.

He can't be more grateful when the other man just stands up, offering Keiji first his hand and then his shoulder, helping him limp over to the door and then out into the town. 

At least until he notices how quiet the other is, how pure animosity is radiating off of his body. It's a tense walk back to the cabin, the sun growing hotter and hotter every slow step they take together. It probably doesn't help that the other man is taking in as much of Keiji's weight as he can. 

When they arrive, sweaty and tired, Keiji says a quick hello to his grandmother and leaves her with the castaway. "Are ya sure ya don't need help getting up there?" The man calls after a limping Keiji.

"It's fifteen stairs," he says. "Besides, you'd have to carry me, and the staircase isn't that wide."

There's a mumbled ‘ _No problem’_ behind him, but Keiji's already on his way. His head is still throbbing and the warm sweat sticking to his skin makes him feel gross. A little hobbling and pain in his ankle is a small price to pay to feel like a person— and not smell like distilled alcohol— again. 

As he sinks into cold water in the small wooden bath upstairs, he muses that he's also feeling quite in need of a second alone, to remember how he woke up just about an hour ago.

For a second, Keiji almost let his head back down and kept sleeping, which would have been both inappropriate and inexcusable. Not to mention that he probably fell asleep on top of the other man in a very embarrassing matter; he knows himself, he even knew last night that he shouldn't be drinking so much. But then, Keiji wasn't exactly feeling his best and the past couple of weeks, while enlightening when it comes to his feelings, have been a little overwhelming.

He sighs, and sinks further in, up to his nose, his ankle throbs and he thinks that what he really needs right now is the sea, to clear away the thoughts that he shouldn't be having.

Which isn't particularly easy, since the last time Keiji felt something like this for someone was when he was fifteen. 

And that someone didn't make him breakfast while only in his trousers. 

In the end, he does manage to control himself, hurrying into some clean pants and an overly large shirt— which probably belonged to his father at some point—that falls off of one of his shoulders, before tiptoeing to the kitchen. The castaway isn't back yet, so maybe Keiji can—

"Oi, I brought ya somethin’ to eat before ya pass out." The voice is deep and concerned, coming from the door that proceeds to open and reveal a— shirtless, of course— man with a plate in his hand.

"Why are you half-naked?" Keiji asks, pointedly not looking. 

"Yer grandma wanted her fish fried and I got grease on my shirt," the other says, with a shrug and a smirk. "I'll run to the bath now, so don't get all wound up and stuff," he says, setting Keiji's breakfast on the rickety wooden table where they usually eat. His voice is a little softer than usual, a stark contrast from how he was just acting back in town. "Is yer ankle feeling better?"

Keiji hums, hobbling to the table. "It's a little better," he fixes his gaze on the eggs. Words bubble to his throat, but this isn't the right place, and there's never going to be a right time— not with this man. "Thank you for helping me out, Myaa-san," he says finally. "I owe you."

And then the other man laughs, low and deep. "Pretty sure I'm the one that owes ya big time, Akaashi," the man says, stepping past Keiji, presumably to go draw himself a fresh bath. "Goin' out into the open sea like that, to get some random stranger, yer really somethin' ya know? This place really doesn't deserve ya." 

It's like a bucket of ice water down Keiji's back; he's frozen as he hears the man's footsteps fade down the corridor. 

The door to the bathroom clicks shut, and he snaps out of it.

Konoha, that little traitor, just what did he say?

A little breathless, he shovels food into his mouth, not really tasting it. Part of what he has liked so much of the past couple of weeks with the castaway has been that the other man has no idea about the town's general dislike of Keiji— or about Bokuto. It has been so nice to be around someone who doesn't treat him like he might just break if his elbow hits a wooden banister, like he might just go into a drunken bender where he dives off the cliff and searches for a hours for a corpse that isn't there until he almost drowns himself. 

It has been good, but now that he recalls the castaway's voice just a couple seconds ago, soft, almost pitying, all he can feel is annoyance.

He finishes the plate and goes to leave it to soak. Then he single mindedly goes to stand outside of the bathroom, leaning on the wooden door jamb of his own room, glaring at the door. He has no idea what he's going to say, has no idea of what Konoha even said, so he figures that's going to be the first thing he has to ask before he gives himself away. 

Time passes slowly, and his head still hurts.

But at some point he hears the footsteps inside, the wet dripping on the floor, and not too long after, the door opens on a wet and mostly naked man that stares at Keiji like he's grown an extra head.

Steeling himself on his good foot, Keiji looks up, defiant. "Konoha said something, didn't he?"

"He has a loose tongue, that one," the other man says, and makes to turn towards the guest room. 

Keiji has never been the kind to leave well enough alone, so he reaches out, catching the man by the wrist. "What did he say?" Keiji asks, because how can he not? There may be nothing to do about it, but to his mind it's imperative that he knows just how much Konoha revealed of how badly Keiji's broken.

The castaway's skin is warm, wet; there are droplets of cold water sliding down his arms, his chest, his jaw. His eyes are the sea before a storm. "I won't bring it up if ya don't wanna. I learned my lesson last time, don't worry." Keiji squeezes down on his wrist. "Fine, he jus' went on about yer parents. Real pieces of work from what the guy said. Not like it matters to me. Yer a good guy Akaashi, and ya saved me from drowning. Rather backwards, for a mermaid."

Despite himself, Keiji smiles. "I guess," He cranes his head to the side. "Was that all?"

The man hesitates. "It..." he sighs, free hand raking through dark, wet hair. "Yeah, jus' that."

He's so bad at lying, so bad at pretending, in general. "I don't like it when you lie to me," he mutters, looking down. "I'm not fragile, or stupid. Despite what you all might think."

That's what enrages him, really— he has damage, he _does_. And he doesn't like to talk about Bokuto because it hurts and it's never going to stop hurting, but that doesn't mean he's a salt statue, ready to crumble at a touch. 

Keiji's teeth scrape against each other in the silent moment that follows, and he's about to storm off when something warm covers his hand. 

The castaway carefully pries Keiji's fingers from his wrist, strong enough that Keiji can't really offer resistance, but not so much that it would hurt, and then he's the one wrapping his hands around Keiji's forearms, one at a time, and stepping towards him so Keiji is crowded back into the wooden door jamb. "What do ya want me to do?" The man says, looking down at Keiji with dark eyes. "D'ya think I don't want to ask? Who the heck this Bokuto person is, why someone like ya would risk drownin' to get some random piece of driftwood?"

"I'm sure you do," Keiji answers with a shaky voice, feeling anger morph into courage in the pit of his stomach. "As much as I want to ask where you were going on that ship of yours, who with. But you haven't told me and I've respected that." He breathes in deeply, looks down; two inches closer and they'd be pressed up against each other. "I didn't want you to know about all of that, like you don't want to tell me who you really are. I don't want you to look at me..." His voice gets caught in his throat, and he hopes the other man can see it in his face.

_I don't want you to look at me like they do._

A second passes, the hold on his arms loosens, and Keiji's sure it's over and he has gotten his point across. Until a thick forearm lands right above his head, and there's suddenly no two inches of space; he’s literally stuck between the door jamb and the man's hard, warm body. "'m lookin' at ya," the castaway says, and Keiji can't help but tilt his head up and meet the other's eyes. "Akaashi, since I—"

He swallows, hard, and before Keiji has time to wonder what comes after those words, he's being kissed.

It's not the first time, though the first time was so long ago that it's barely more than a blurry, sunlit fragment of a memory. 

For a second, he tries to recall Bokuto's bright smile then, the smell of the flowers he'd been carrying to the market. But he can't.

He can't, because he's being consumed, enveloped in heat that's somehow not sticky or uncomfortable. His arms rise to go around the castaway's shoulders and he opens his mouth to let the man delve in as deep as he wants to. And when this makes the other man groan, low and deep, Keiji drinks it in greedily, answering with a moan of his own. 

His own name is whispered against his lips and Keiji leans up for more, wincing when his hurt foot tries to provide some support. "Fuck," the castaway groans, pulling away and glancing down. "Yer okay, right?"

Keiji looks up at him, eyes wide, lips trembling, a wave of feelings sinking him into confusion and fear.

What is he doing?

He turns around, swiftly, even though his ankle sends a hot flash of pain up his leg when he puts weight on it, and slips into his room, slamming the door shut.

The whole thing ends with Keiji sliding down his own wall, doing his best to breathe, wondering why the hell he's decided to fall for someone he doesn't even know, for someone that's going to be leaving soon.

.

.

All of the experience Osamu has in romance wouldn't fill a tin jar. 

No, seriously, his crew was always like family, and after he and Atsumu left the city they grew up in, they never settled anywhere else. Sure, there were encounters at certain towns in the lowlights of sunset, but never something that lasted more than a couple of nights at most.

So he has no idea exactly what he did wrong, or how to fix it.

He's mulling on that, a basket hanging off his forearm and Kaori on his left as they stroll the Monday morning market, when it happens. 

"...the Panther sunk those Inarizaki bastards, I'm telling you.” The person speaking is an old, toothless man, wearing clothes that look clearly foreign as he haggles for rum in one of the stalls. "I saw the flagship with my own eyes. The Eastern islands are a free-for-all right now."

The man manning the stall snorts as he crosses thick, hairy arms over his chest. "I just heard that Atsumu Miya was roaming around somewhere close to Itachiyama not too long ago. Whatever you saw was probably forged."

"Why would anyone forge a flag?" The other man asks. "The Vixen was sunk! I'm tellin' ya, and there's no way they survived in the high sea. The Panther saw to that."

"How would you even know it was the Panther?"

"That's what the guy who saw it all told me. They said this small ship with black sails an' a bunch of cannons on the side brought back the flag, said the Vixen was toast."

"I think you got swindled, buddy. I heard from someone I actually know that they saw Kita and that crazy lieutenant of his at Itachiyama. Don't go looking for gold at the eastern islands, odds are you're gonna end up on the wrong end of a Miya sword."

"Should we go?" Kaori chirps from beside him. Osamu barely even noticed the basket hanging from his arm becoming heavier as she loaded it up with onions, and carrots, and meat.

Osamu is torn— on one hand, he could go up to the man, offer him what little money he has for the information, he could turn back, go to the inn and maybe keep following this lead later. "Would you—"

"I— actually want to talk to you for a sec?" She says, voice high and unwavering, a small hand wraps around Osamu's bicep. "It's important, and I can help you if you want to come back later." Osamu turns to meet her eyes, the bustling street around the both of them seems to blur. 

"How long have ya known?" 

She rolls her eyes. "There's a literal wanted poster with your face in town," she says.

"'S not my face." Osamu pouts, holding his breath for a second, wondering if this is where he gets turned over to the marine. "'s my stupid brother's."

"Your twin brother?" She giggles. "Look, I offered you the job because I knew, you have the best reputation." She hums, and starts tugging Osamu along the street. "And Keiji-kun likes you, and that was enough of a reason to just play the fools." Something warm, a little guilty unfurls in Osamu's belly, and he looks away, eyes on the eaves of a nearby house. "We hadn't seen him this happy in years, you know?"

Osamu scoffs, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face; it's always too warm here. "Why do I feel like yer lecturing me?" He asks.

"Because I sort of am." She sighs. "Akinori wanted to talk to you about this, but I told him it needed a woman's touch."

In the distance, the inn comes into view, right at the end of the main street of the village, one of the very few two story buildings in it. "I know it's fucked up, I shouldn't have—"

"Lied?" She interrupts him. "No, we totally understand why you lied, and I get that it's not just your fault, but if you're going to leave, you shouldn't have let him get attached to you."

It's the truth, one that Osamu has struggled to face over the last few days. Ever since Akaashi started looking at him with those flat eyes, and a face that's utterly devoid of expression again. He hasn't been mean, or rude, hasn't even asked Osamu to get out of his house, which he would have been absolutely justified in doing. He's just put as much distance between himself and Osamu as one can while being stuck in the same house. What's really surprising is how much it has hurt, and now, right after hearing his brother's name spoken just a couple of meters from him, Osamu realizes how comfortable he's gotten. If he really wanted to leave, he'd be halfway to Inarizaki by now.

"I didn't mean to." He sighs. "I fucked up 's what ya mean, right? With the kiss, and with everything?"

A pair of wide blue eyes are turned on him. "You two kissed?" She all but squeals. "I thought— why hadn't you told me? I thought you'd told him you were leaving!" Kaori punches his arm softly, affectionate in a way that makes Osamu a little nostalgic.

"Well, 's not like he doesn't know," Osamu grumbles, cheeks burning as he turns away. "I was sure he'd told ya."

She sighs. "You really don't see how much he keeps to himself, do you?" The inn's door is right in front of them, and Osamu realizes he could have turned back any moment, but he didn't. He sighs, turning to Kaori without any idea of how to respond. "So, what's your plan?" She asks.

And Osamu, he realizes, is going to need more than one plan.

.

.

No, Keiji isn't being _dramatic_.

He's just... protecting himself.

The sand under his toes is coarse and warm, the sun is slowly, slowly turning hotter and hotter, and by noon it'll be one of those days where Keiji just wants to sit by the shore and take a soak every hour because the heat might kill him if he doesn't. 

His hair is still wet from his first morning swim, though; it was his first swim since he hurt his ankle last week, too. It was just fine, the sea is calm and crystalline today, and Keiji got a large pearl out of it that he's probably not going to sell, anyway. He turns it over in his hands, the almost pinkish sheen of it catching the light.

"Phew, that's a big one. Could get ya enough money to get out of this tiny archipelago." It's strange that he didn't hear the footsteps come up behind him, but then, Keiji has been very much stuck in his own head these past few days. He turns to look at the castaway, who is just standing there in an open shirt and simple trousers that end midway down his calves.

After that kiss on the day after Keiji's birthday, the other man pounded on the door for about half an hour. Keiji just asked him to go away, said it was fine, although they both knew it wasn't.

And for the remainder of the week, he was just... distant, giving Keiji the space he so desperately asked for and that he has come to somewhat hate. "Shouldn't you be helping Kaori out?" He asks dryly, looking away from the man and keeping his eyes on the faraway skyline. "She told me she had a big group come in last night."

"Yeah, well, I helped her with prep last night," the other man says, and then he sits down beside Keiji, carefully, as if he's a small creature the other doesn't want to spook. "She said I could have today free."

Keiji's lips thin into a tight line. "What for?" He asks finally, although he's sure he already knows. This man was only here temporarily to begin with. It must be time for him to get going; it’s just natural.

"To talk to ya." The sigh that escapes the man’s throat makes it even clearer— this is a thank you, but it’s also a goodbye. It was to be expected, Keiji figures; anyone would find it awkward to remain here after what happened the other day. “I really need to talk to ya, Akaashi.”

Keiji knows those earnest eyes are on his face, and he tries to keep his lips from trembling as the bright, clear horizon is burned into his retina. “So talk,” he says softly, so softly that a gust of wind could carry his words away; he wishes it would.

“I just—” Keiji can hear how the man’s breath catches, how he steels himself. “I owe ya my life, and I’m so thankful for it I couldn’t make it up to ya. Not that damn treasure chest under yer bed couldn’t buy ya anything, but I— Look, what I’m sayin’ is I’ve been keepin’ secrets and I know that’s shitty.” That makes Keiji pause and look at the other man in bewilderment. He hadn’t expected him to reveal his identity— if he was going to all along, why bother hiding it? “What I’m trying ta say is I never lost my memory. I was just afraid ‘cause I’m not—”

He seems to be struggling for the words, so, without even thinking, Keiji surges forward with some of his own. “Exactly on the right side of the law? I gathered. I’ve seen your tattoos often.”

“Yeah, well, I mean yer smart, it was probably easy to—” the man’s mouth hangs open on the last syllable, and Keiji can see the certainty in his eyes mirrored in the other man’s. “Wait, did yer friends tell ya?”

Keiji gives him a sad smile. “I already knew,” he says, before drawing in a breath that seems long enough for the world to end on it. “You’re Osamu Miya, aren’t you? And you came here to talk to me because you’re going to be leaving soon. This week if everything goes as it should.”

A beat of silence passes between them, and it’s only logical that Osamu is leaving; he _should_. Keiji has known him for less than a month, and he understands the situation as well as anyone else, but in that short moment, he feels such an overwhelming urge to get back in the sea that it suffocates him. “I’m—” Osamu stammers, chest heaving as if he just sprinted all the way from the village. “I—“

“It’s fine,” Keiji says, through lips that barely cooperate. “I guess I will miss your cooking.” He sucks in a breath, springing up from his spot in a sudden burst. “You probably have many things to get to, I am glad I could help you.”

“Akaashi, fuck, wai—” He hears the other say, but he’s already being drawn to the sea, again, as always.

“I want to take another swim,” he half-says, half-yells, and his legs are already carrying him in, the warm waters welcoming him in like a mother’s arms.

In the water, Keiji is at home; in the water, he is _fast_ , so surprise seizes him by the chest as hard as Osamu’s arms around his waist do. They come up on the calm surface, sluggish waves rocking their joined forms. “Will ya ever let me finish one damn sentence?” Osamu sputters, still clinging to Keiji like a lifetime, heaving from actual exertion this time. 

Keiji is fast, so they’re far away from the shore, enough that their feet barely meet the sandy bottom without the water coming up over their shoulders “You caught me,” Keiji says, turning to fix his eyes on Osamu’s face. 

“Almost didn’t,” Osamu coughs; he’s still wearing the shirt and the trousers. “And only ‘cause I didn’t hesitate. No wonder people think yer a water nymph.”

“A water witch,” Keiji frowns up at him. “How did you—”

A sluggish grin takes over the other man’s face. “Been on a ship since I was fifteen. Didja think I couldn’t swim decently?” 

It’s a fair point, and Keiji tilts his head to the side. “Then why?” For what reason would this man chase him out into the sea? For what reason would he cling to Keiji now, like he’s the lifeline to his ship. Why, why, _why_?

When he speaks, Osamu’s eyes are almost pitying, almost exasperated, like Keiji has done something he can’t believe. “Was the other day not clear enough?” He asks hoarsely. “I wasn’t comin’ here to tell ya I’m leavin’, _yer_ the one that assumed.”

“But you are leaving,” Keiji points out. “I know you’re not planning to stay here. Your brother—”

“Is an ass,” Osamu says with a straight face. “An’ if the rumors are right, he’s fine. If they’re wrong, I’m not gonna find him, anyway.” Osamu gives him a wry grin. “He can wait a little longer.”

“Osamu—” The name tastes strange on Keiji’s tongue, foreign and almost too grave. 

So this is what he gets, isn’t it? A little more time, just enough to live it all out, but never enough. 

It’s more than he’s ever gotten, so, right as a short, gentle wave crashes over their heads, Keiji joins their lips in a kiss that tastes only of salt and sunshine. The arms around his middle turn into a dead hold, and the touch of Osamu’s lips on his tears any intrinsic resistance he might have still had right out of his mind.

The waves keep gently pushing them towards the shore, and Keiji can’t help the idea that comes over him then. One of his hands travels down the soaked sleeve of Osamu’s shirt, right down to the man’s hand and he laces their fingers together. “How good are you at swimming, really?”

.

. 

Akaashi is definitely something else. 

When they emerge into the tiny, hidden cave, even Osamu’s lungs feel like they’re about to burst.

In contrast, the otherworldly being that is Akaashi only looks mildly winded as he pulls himself up on the rocky ledge and shakes the excess water out of his hair. 

Osamu can only stare in wonder, at him— at the cave. 

They’re somewhere inside the cliffs that flank Akaashi’s cabin, in a small cove that opens up into a cave of grayish blue stone that has been polished into nearly smooth flatness where the water laps at it. Some sunlight is spilling in from the top of the cavern; Osamu can spy an opening or two through the more jagged rock that makes up the roof.

When he looks behind himself, he can see that the entrance to this place is fully underwater, but he can still spy it from the looks of the light streaming from the opening they swam through. “I found this place when I was ten,” Akaashi says, a small but dazzling smile adorning his face. “No one’s ever been able to keep up with me enough to come in here.”

Finally having caught his breath, Osamu laughs. “Glad I’m yer first,” he says, hauling his own body over the stone ledge. His shirt and pants are ruined, but that’s just as well. “So ya weren’t sure I was gonna survive it?”

“I could have gotten you back to the shore,“ Akaashi says with a confidence that shouldn’t be appealing when he’s talking about the possibility of Osamu passing out and needing to be taken back to safety. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” he points out as he daintily walks over to a large, smooth looking stone with veins of soft purple and deep blue and sits on it.

Maybe he’s still a little euphoric from nearly having the breath kissed out of him, but Osamu laughs again. “True,” he huffs, walking over to Akaashi until he’s standing right in front of the man, and eyes that look like they could be a million different shades of blue look up at him. “Yer one of the strangest things I’ve seen in my life, Akaashi,” he says, fondly. “And I’ve seen actual mermaids.”

"Aren't those supposed to drown sailors?" Akaashi asks, wonder in the eyes that look up at Osamu.

"It was a brief meetin'" Osamu explains, he can't help his hand rising to brush along the side of Akaashi's face. "I got dragged down to the lower deck right after. They're not much to write home about— he shrugs. "Don't hold a candle to ya."

Akaashi laughs, high and lilting, and it bounces off the walls in crystal clear echoes. "You don't have to try to charm me, now," he says, rolling his eyes as he leans into the warm touch over his cheek. 

"Right, I only need to cook for ya," Osamu says, laughing. "Am I really the first one ya bring here? This place is beautiful."

It's funny that this all seemed complicated just an hour ago; that Osamu thought Akaashi would be mad at him for lying. This, the place, the man in front of him, it all seems more like a dream he would have had when he was a child, dreaming of the ocean and what might be beyond it in a bunk under Atsumu's. "People tend to get scared when I tell them to sink underwater so close to the cliffs." Akaashi's hand comes up to join Osamu's on his cheek. "Apparently I just needed to find a pirate."

Slowly, like he's afraid Akaashi will fade away in front of him like a mirage, Osamu kneels down, sodden knees hitting the floor. "Ya fished one right out of the sea," he says, as his free hand finds Akaashi's other cheek. "I'm sorry I took so long to tell ya the truth."

"As opposed to being a stranded pirate in this prejudiced little village." Akaashi smiles. "We've all known for a while, anyway. It made sense."

"So y'all were just humoring me?" Osamu asks, a small frown forming on his face.

Akaashi places one careful hand on his shoulder, then another. "You're not a good liar, " he says softly, eyes roving over Osamu's face. "I think that's why we were so at ease. You couldn't have some dark plan with how often you slipped. I'm sure even Nana knows." Yeah, even his Nana with her paling skin, even as she withers in front of Keiji’s eyes.

At that, Osamu lets out a cackle. "Yer Nana has known since she met me. The moment you were out of earshot she told me was welcome as long as I didn't bring any swords into the house."

Something joyful, longing, fills Akaashi's face. "Doesn't surprise me," he says with a smile, and Osamu can't stop himself anymore. He uses the hands he has around Akaashi's face to softly tug the man down so their lips meet again. It's cool inside the cave, but Akaashi is soft and warm, and he draws Osamu in like there's not an ounce of hesitance in his body or his mind. When Osamu leans up even further, hands moving to the sides of Akaashi's hips to brace himself on the rock, he moans.

It's a lot. Osamu has never considered himself to be a slave to his baser instincts, but he's also just a man that currently has someone that looks like he could be taken out from one of the paintings on the halls of the Seijoh king, spread out and all too willing right in front of him. “Must’ve been funny,” he says, getting on his feet and leaning forward so he’s looming over Akaashi. “An’ here I thought I was doin’ a decent job.”

“At getting us to like you, maybe.” Akaashi’s chest is heaving. “You’re staring,” he whispers, but in the cave, it echoes. Some of the sunlight that bounces off the water barely a couple of meters away is giving his face an otherworldly glow. 

Osamu blinks at him, the words are so full of heat, tone so much deeper than he’s used to hearing from the other man. “Akaashi, what do ya—” But then he’s stumbling forward; lithe legs have wrapped around his waist and are pulling him in with the strength of a person that defies the ocean often and wins. “Ya sure?” Osamu asks, because there is no doubt in his mind of what he wants, and oh _god_ , he does want so much.

“I want to,” Akaashi huffs, almost petulant as his hands tug the sodden shirt off of Osamu’s shoulders. “I’ve wanted to since—” He chokes, flushes, buries one of his hands in Osamu’s hair, pulling him forward so hard Osamu has to stiffen in order to keep their noses from crashing into each other.

“Gods—” Osamu pants. “Gods, so have I.” He says, and then his hands are helping Akaashi’s along, grunting at how his wet shirt sticks to his skin. He wants it off now, he wants to feel Akaashi’s heat pressed up to his own as soon as time will allow, even if time doesn’t seem like much of a concern in this cave.

They’re so close to Akaashi’s home, yet completely cut off for it. _‘Good_ ,’ Osamu thinks, _because I don’t want him to hold back._ ’

It only barely crosses his mind that this might not be the best idea, that this is nothing if not unorthodox, and maybe he and Akaashi should take more time to do things other than this. The reality of their situation is, however, that they don’t have time, that Osamu is going to go look for his brother and his crew soon enough, and even if he promises to come back—

He has to come back, or else, take Akaashi with him.

“What are you thinking about?” Comes the voice, crystal clear, ringing as it bounces off the rock walls. Akaashi's looking up at him, his eyes are the color of sapphires.

Osamu’s breath catches in his throat. There will probably be better moments for this, probably. “Come with me?” It’s meant to sound confident, but instead it’s a plea. “Come with me to find Atsumu, I want to show ya off to that bastard.”

For a second, Akaashi watches him, wide eyed. “I can’t,” he says then, simply. “My grandmother—” He swallows hard. “I couldn’t leave her alone.”

It’s the answer Osamu expected. “I know,” he whispers. “I know. Not with how—” How weak she’s been getting lately, how tired she looks. Even Osamu, who’s been here for such a short time, can see the shift. “You hate it here.” He says, instead of blurting out another plea, some half baked plan that Akaashi would never accept.

“I’ve hated it here for years,” Akaashi responds, as he slides his slender fingers up Osamu’s back. “I can live with it.”

Always live with it, even when he looks more abandoned than some shipwrecks Osamu has seen. Sighing, he bends down to kiss over the slender line of Akaashi’s neck. “Yer strong, I know yer strong,” he says, fondness filling his chest. “Let me come back for ya.” He presses a kiss to the place where he can feel Akaashi’s pulse. “I’ll do what I have ta do, and then I’ll come back for ya and we can do whatever ya want.”

The words roll easily off his tongue, but Osamu is all too aware of how much the commitment behind them weighs. It could be months before he even gets a solid lead, and he’ll be halfway across the Archipelago, maybe even at the mainland. Akaashi writhes under him., his hands playing with Osamu’s hair. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere Osamu. I don’t—”

Osamu catches a pink, pebbled nipple in his mouth and Akaashi cuts off the sentence with a breathy moan.

Despite the interruption, those are the saddest words he’s heard the pearl diver speak.

.

.

Keiji’s heart is hammering as hard as his headboard against the wall. 

And he doesn’t care; his grandmother is at the market, having left as soon as he went out to dive in an attempt to not be monitored as she makes small talk with the other older women over carrots and other legumes. It’s something she does, sometimes, when she thinks he’s getting too overbearing.

Usually it would annoy him, but right now, it’s for the best.

He barely even remembers standing from the rock where he and Osamu had been rutting against each other, like two drunken fools, and declaring that he wouldn’t get some bit of rock stuck somewhere Kaori would make fun of him for, so they’d better get back to the cabin. The swim back, too, is a blur. All he knows is that as soon as their feet hit the dry sand on the side of the cliffs that the cabin is in, their lips were glued together to the point of it being ridiculous.

It was— to say the least— a chore getting up the stairs.

But now they’re in his room, he’s naked as the day he was born, and Osamu— Osamu is, too.

Strangely, he isn't nervous; where Keiji tends to overthink, his mind is blissfully filled with only wanting to feel the man between his legs closer, closer, impossibly closer.

Even if it's the first time Keiji has done anything like this, even if just a couple of months ago he thought he would never want to.

Osamu's fingers, inside of him, curl like they're looking for something. "Ah... what—" He mouths into Osamu's shoulder, rolling his hips down into the touch, begging for more. "That's—" He opens his eyes, previously screwed shut from pleasure, searching Osamu's smug expression. He looks the way Keiji thinks a god of the sea should.

"Ya like it?" The pirate's smirk only grows wider. "Yer gorgeous, Keiji," he says, and for once Keiji believes it, right before Osamu curls his fingers again, while leaning down to lay a trail of kisses over Keiji's throat.

In romance novels, this would be happening in the dead of night, or maybe in some liminal time— sunset, dawn— but the midday sun streaming through Keiji's window speaks of something else. It doesn't bring the tone of an illicit, short-lived affair to the bedroom, to their activities. But rather, it makes it all seem clear, pure, absolutely and irrefutably right. And Keiji stands by that, even if it's temporary. Even if Osamu's leaving and likely won't come back, no matter how much he promises he will, or how much Keiji wishes that he will.

This is his; this is perfect, and Keiji will keep it in his heart, in a drop of water, unblemished by the harsh tint of reality.

"Of course I, ah—" Keiji arches up into Osamu's mouth. "Of course I like it." He moans, reveling in the tiny electric shocks Osamu's fingers are rhythmically sending up his spine. Osamu has been so slow, so sweet. Unlike Keiji, he must have experience, in all those ports he visited, all those cities he spent midnights at. It almost makes him jealous, or it _would_ if he wasn't being looked at like he's the only person in the world. "But I want you now," he does his best to keep his voice steady, to not allow the words to wobble. But when Osamu pushes himself up on his hands and uncertain grey eyes the color of the cliffs he calls home meet his, his voice does break. " _Please_."

It's sweet that Osamu knows he wouldn't ask if he wasn't sure, that he doesn't undermine Keiji's choice by asking again. "Just tell me if anything I do hurts ya," he says softly, taking his fingers out from inside Keiji. "Anythin'" 

Enthusiastic, Keiji nods, he scoots back into the pillows at the head of the bed, shooting the man on his bed a heated look. "I think we have established I'm not fragile."

"No, yer tougher than me," Osamu agrees, training a finger up one of Keiji's bent legs. "But I don't want ta make ya hurt."

He might just, for a little bit, Keiji muses as he looks down the pirate's body; down the sea creature inked down the left side of his chest , down to the 'v' of his hips and the place where his hard, erect cock is standing to attention. "I'll tell you, but I promise I'll be fine."

Osamu maneuvers around him, he slicks himself up, slings Keiji's legs over his shoulders, slips a pillow under his hips so he'll be more comfortable. And it's easy— Keiji feels taken care of. When Osamu lines himself up, he hooks his arms around the man's neck and smiles. "Now yer staring," Osamu says, meeting his smile in the middle, turning the whole thing into a soft kiss. 

"Can you blame me?" Keiji asks, against his lips, right before he takes a deep breath through the kiss. "Osamu, please," he whispers, languidly shifting his hips against the other man's hardness.

"And _I'm_ the dangerous one," Osamu says, pressing a little kiss to Keiji's jaw before pushing himself up, so he's hovering, watching.

And then he pushes in.

It's an uncomfortable stretch, at first, and the sting almost manages to bring tears to Keiji's eyes. 

Osamu stops, concerned, even as his body is vibrating with need, dripping sweat on Keiji's from the usual island heat. Keiji takes a deep breath. "I'm fine." He is; he breathes through the sting and after it fades, relishes in the stretch. “Move, please?” He asks, looking up at Osamu, who gives Keiji the sweetest smile he’s ever given anyone.

And he obliges.

It’s sweet, it’s amazing, and it makes Keiji arch off the bed like he’s being electrocuted. 

It’s not something that can be described. It’s the moment, the atmosphere, the way the air smells mixed with the scent of their bodies. It’s something that wouldn’t make sense out of context. When Keiji comes, he feels like he’s seen half the world, like Osamu has. He feels like he could do this again and again, everyday of his life, and never get tired. 

He isn’t sure if everybody else’s first time is this good, but he’s thankful anyways. Grateful for his own body, grateful for Osamu’s heat, for his mouth pressed to Keiji’s collarbone, for his hair tickling Keiji’s chin.

Osamu is sweet right after as he brushes his fingers over every ridge of Keiji’s body that is within reach, softly, but with a possessiveness that leaves no room for doubt. 

Keiji isn’t sure how binding that want is, but he’s just enjoying it right now.

When the sweat cools on their bodies— as much as it can, anyway— he gets assaulted by an idea. Osamu is dozing beside him, heavy-lidded eyes drooping as he stokes a thumb over the center of Keiji’s chest. “Do you really want to know?” He asks, looking at the ceiling like today it might have the answers it hasn’t had in the past seven years.

“Wha—?” Osamu asks, sleepy. “Oh, about… If ya wanna tell me—” He hesitates at the end of the sentence, as if he’s gaging Keiji’s reaction.

“I’ve never told anyone,” Keiji explains. “Everyone who knows was present, back then.” He can feel Osamu looking at him, but turning to meet the man’s eyes right now might be his undoing, so he continues looking at the ceiling, and he concentrates on the feeling of the mattress under him. “We were childhood friends, I—” His breath catches in his throat, maybe he should omit this detail. “I was in love with him.” He can’t, it’s so obvious, turning to hide it is embarrassing. “When we were fifteen, he started trying to trade out of here, in small ships, sometimes even boats. Sometimes, bigger ships would even drop their anchors where they could, and he’d go out to meet them with a couple more people.”

“Darin’” Osamu observes, before he adds. “That’s not a good strategy. Many things coulda gone wrong.”

“I know,” Keiji huffs. “We told him that, but he didn’t listen. He was heading over to another island, this once, just him and another two people. I went to see them off—” Even after all this time, saying it hurts. “I gave him a pearl to sell for himself,” there’s a painful knot growing at the base of his throat. “Their boat showed back up a day later, capsized and empty. People say I cursed him, I—”

“Ya couldn’t,” Osamu soothes, fingertips trailing delicately over the place where Keiji’s heart is straining to pound harder, faster, still angry, still grieving. “Yer a blessing at worst, Akaashi.”

“We never even found a body,” Keiji sighs; he must look pathetic. “I couldn’t argue with that.”

“It’s the fuckin’ ocean,” Osamu grunts. “If it can swallow ships, it can swallow three bodies.”

It can. Keiji knows that, all too well. Suddenly cold, he shivers. “I know.”

Osamu pulls him closer. Downstairs, he hears the door to his Nana’s floor click open and shut. This isn’t going to last, but what does? At least he’ll get to tell Osamu goodbye.

.

.

It's all easy, and sweet, and more than Osamu could have ever imagined in his lonely nights in Akaashi’s guest room.

Still, as the days pass, it’s been easy to see that Akaashi is getting more and more restless; desperate when they make love, skittish when they’re out of the house.

Osamu has been at the mercy of the sea his whole life. He’s used to living while wrangling the anxiety that comes with being beholden to circumstances that are out of his control.

But Akaashi isn't.

The pearl diver just fell asleep nestled into Osamu's side, pressed to him despite the heat that pervades the room even at night. "Yer so pretty," he says, knowing Akaashi's isn't listening. His knuckles brush up and down the ridge of the man's back before he turns back to the map Akaashi himself procured for Osamu this morning. “Yer more beautiful than the mermaids, I mean that.”

He's been just a little too frantic, too on edge. And he tries his best not to let it show, but as the days go by, it's only more and more evident.

He's waiting for Osamu to leave; he doesn't fully believe Osamu will be back. 

Which is... a sensible mindset, loathe as he is to admit it. Osamu at the very least understands. Groaning, he looks up at the ceiling, at the shadows playing on it with the flickering of the oil lamp beside Akaashi's bed. 

It's not that Osamu doesn't _want_ to stay, but this isn't really a choice either. It's his brother, his crew. If there was a way he could know for sure— not from rumors exchanged between drunks at the market— that they were alright, maybe he could take more time. Maybe he could find a way to work this out with Akaashi that wasn't a flimsy promise, one that he might not even be able to keep— being a pirate with no ship and no crew isn't exactly safe.

"Have you decided on a route, then?" Comes the sleepy voice from the man currently using Osamu's shoulder as a pillow. He must’ve been woken up by the soft touch of Osamu’s finger.

Osamu sighs, shuffling closer to Akaashi somehow, even though they're already pressed close together. "Yeah," Osamu swallows. "I'm gettin’ on a boat to a decent port in the other village. Last I heard, someone saw then close to Itachiyama, so—" 

"You're heading up this strait here, right?" Akaashi says, pointing at the tiny strip of blue between two islands. "Fastest way, and it's also—"

"The route they'd take," Osamu completes. "Fer someone who's never left this tiny village, I'm sure ya would be a good sailor."

Akaashi huffs out a laugh. "You're only saying that because I dive." He turns his head to press a kiss to Osamu's shoulder. "I've never even been on a real ship. I'm sure I'd puke." 

Remembering how Akaashi looked that first time he saw the diver jump off of the cliff, Osamu can't help but laugh. "I'm sure ya could be captain if ya wanted," he mutters into Akaashi's hair. "Yer smart, and yer reasonable, and I've only seen one other person that can wrangle people into shape without even tryin' an' that's my own captain."

"The one that dragged you and your brother out of a fighting ring and onto a ship?" Akaashi laughs. "No, I don't think I could ever be like that. You're right, I've never left this place. I wonder if things might be different if I—" He shakes his head. "I couldn't have left my Nana."

"I know," Osamu sighs. "But that doesn't mean ya wouldn't make a good sailor. I can just imagine ya diving right off the side of the ship, coming up with whole treasure chests in your hands. Man, I wish we'd had you around when that galleon blew up and the whole of the reef in the eastern islands was dotted with coins wherever ya looked. Made the striped sea look even brighter."

Akaashi's eyes light up at that; Osamu knows, even though he's not watching them. For the past week and a half, he's dedicated himself to committing the other man to memory, so that he can remember he has someone to come back to, so that he'll miss Akaashi just a smidgen less. "I guess I would have had fun," he huffs. "Is it really that beautiful, the striped sea?" He asks softly. Osamu knows all he's seen are the waters around Fukurodani, but Akaashi is such an avid reader— he knows what he's heard of the waters close to the place where Osamu was born.

Osamu hums. "Mhmm. Everywhere ya look, there's color, and the water is almost as clear as it is here." It's petty, and unfair, but it escapes him nonetheless. "I wish—"

Luckily, Akaashi has the good sense to shut him up with a kiss, to pull the map out of Osamu's hands and shift in the sheets until he's free of them. And when he is, me pushes himself up, swings a leg over Osamu's hips, straddles him in all of his naked glory.

This is not the time, and sometimes, choices are not quite choices. The palm leaves slap against the windows in the night breeze, but neither of them hears them.

.

.

The day that Osamu leaves, the sky is a perfect powder blue and it's hot enough to make Keiji— who has lived in this place all this life and is more than used to the heat—sweat. There’s a flock of red footed, red beaked birds standing on the beach as Keiji comes out of the water, fresh from his morning dive, clutching a pearl between his fingers.

It's still so early, but Osamu has to leave early, if he wants to get into one of the boats that go to one of the larger islands in the archipelago; the ones with actual ports, the ones that aren't flanked by massive corals and jagged rocks. Keiji doesn't want him to spend a night on the road, not with his face, not with the fox in his arm or the leviathan on his chest. It’s too much of a risk, and he can’t bear the thought of risking Osamu, even though he knows it’s all out of his hands, anyway.

It was easy enough for Keiji, some nobody from a backwater village, to realize. Anyone could sell him out— the bounty on his head is one of the things that's kept Keiji on his toes for the past two weeks. It really could be anyone that hands him off to the navy.

And once the Navy catches him, it's the gallows.

Especially for Osamu, with no ship to run away in and not enough money to bribe an official for an escape.

Although Keiji might be able to help with that last thing.

So Keiji hasn't been overt about his worries, even though he knows Osamu feels his anxiety. Instead he's helped plan, gather supplies, and forge papers. 

He was even the one that convinced the only ex navy-officer in town to trade him a sword for a satchel of pearls. 

It's not that he's short on them. Years before Keiji was born, everyone fished for them until the reefs ran out of pearls, until even the most experienced divers— like his Nana— could only bring tiny, useless pearls up. 

Keiji has no idea why no one else started after he did, when he proved that the reefs were teeming with pearls again. It probably has to do with the superstitions, but he has long since made it a point not to listen to them; there are only so many times one can be called a sea demon.

Osamu is sitting on the beach, legs stretched out in front of himself, leaning back so the sun bathes his tanned skin, and the soft, dissonant breeze makes the hair at the top of his head sway. He receives Keiji with open arms, with a wide grin even though his clothes are getting soaked. It's blissful, for a minute. "Wanna go to the cave for a bit? I want to say goodbye properly," he asks, a hand already tugging at the drawstring of his pants. 

Keiji wants to say yes; he _really_ wants to say yes. "We're not going to be able to get you in a carriage until noon if we don't leave now. And then you’ll have to spend the night on the town." He frowns, and he knows it's unfair, so he hides that frown in the crook of Osamu's neck. "Besides, I have something I want to give you back at the cabin, I know you said goodbye to Nana last night, but we could—"

"'M not waking yer Nana up," Osamu says, hands tightening around Keiji's neck. "She's mad enough I'm leavin'."

"She'll forgive you." Keiji says, looking up. 

Osamu kisses him, and that's that.

.

.

Even though they stop at the cabin for Akaashi's gift, he doesn't give it to Osamu until they're standing in front of a wooden carriage, drawn by two ragged-looking horses and a frowning coachman. There are already three other people inside and they are all looking at them with a mix of surprise and fear.

The carriages leave Fukurodani about three times a day, from what passes as a station—a wooden deck lined with stakes for tying up the horses and a shack where a middle-aged woman stares moodily out at the rickety carriages.

Well, they're looking at Akaashi like that; they only seem to be curious about Osamu. 

"I found the big one the day I found you," Akaashi says softly as he presses a pouch into Osamu's hand. "You said it'd fetch a good price, didn't you? How about a ticket on a ship?"

Osamu's eyes flicker between the pouch— made of simple, coarse brown fabric— to Akaashi's face. Slowly, he loosens the drawstring and peeks in, only to find a few small pearls and the large one from the first night he had dinner with Akaashi and his friends. "I shouldn't—"

Akaashi smiles, and the sunlight does that thing when it bounces off his teeth. "I have enough of them, you know that," he chastises, and he closes Osamu's fingers over the pouch. “I’d rather they keep you safe than to keep them collecting dust under my bed.”

"'m bringing a treasure chest or somethin' when I come back for ya," he says, and sees Akaashi's face flash with uncertainty. "I am coming back for ya. I'll miss ya, Keiji."

The need to lean down and kiss Akaashi is overwhelming, but Osamu knows he can't, not here. It would be inappropriate even somewhere else, in a big city where people barely know or care about each other. Here, everybody would know before the end of the day, and he doesn't want to give them another reason to reject Akaashi. "I'll miss you too, Osamu," Akaashi says, sharp eyes looking away for a second. "You will find them soon, hopefully."

"Hopefully," Osamu echoes, and he hopes, he really hopes. 

Akaashi urges him to climb up onto the carriage, with his satchel and the very poorly concealed sword at his hip. He's so beautiful. Maybe Osamu could bring back clothes along with that treasure chest; it's not such a far off thing if he manages to find Atsumu and the others. He can bring Akaashi silk shirts and bright colored fabrics, maybe even stockings or some of those shoes that are mostly decorative. They would suit him— even a fishing net would look beautiful on Akaashi— but those would suit him still, so well.

Eventually, the man Osamu loves is but a white and brown blur against the powder blue sky, Osamu steels himself and starts reciting his plan in his mind.

It’s the only thing he can do, other than concentrate on the fact that he’s just left his own heart back in the village.

.

.

She's sitting on the porch when Keiji comes home.

Maybe it's just that he has grown, but she's taller in his childhood memories. Sometimes it strikes Keiji as weird that he remembers her when her hair was still streaked with black, and her hands weren't this spotted from the sun. But at the same time, when he sees her there, it seems like she couldn't ever have possibly been different from the hunched figure on the porch, with her white hair loose and her skin tinted brown by the sun.

His grandmother, who raised him, is looking at him with eyes that look a little nostalgic. He walks up to her and sits down on the step just under the one she's on. "Your father was a pushover—" she begins, and Keiji can't help but snort. "Or he is, I guess, we wouldn't know. But he was always a pushover. He, however, wasn't a coward," she takes a deep breath. "And I used to think that at least you got that from him. He’d go out in that tiny boat into the open sea the way you dive off that cliff, no hesitation."

"No one thinks that's a good quality for me, Nana," Keiji sighs. "You're the only one."

Her eyes soften for a second. "It's not bravery anymore, dear. Although it _is_ a good quality to have," she says, laying a calloused hand over Keiji's bare forearm. "You know you have nothing to fear. I think you've always known, deep down, that your mother—" she presses her lips into a tight line. "That she was special. And that you are too... And yet you're stuck at this dead-end place watching love slip through your fingers like sand."

Keiji's ability to be mad at his Nana is low to begin with; that's the reason he's not storming up the cliffs. "This is good enough for you, so it's good enough for me, too."

She shoots him a dry smile, like she knew Keiji would say that. "You know it's not the same, dear. I lived, and I certainly wasn't wasting away here when I was twenty-two."

"I'm not wasting away," Keiji huffs, looking away and pulling his arm back from her touch. "I just don't want to leave."

A cool breeze blows through the foliage around the cabin, stirring it. He keeps his eyes on the beach, and the sea, and the far off skyline. Fukurodani has always been his whole world, a world in a bubble of glass where not even ships dare to enter. "So, what are you going to be doing here when you're my age? Diving? I had _you_ , Keiji, and I couldn't drag you through half a world of seedy pubs like I did with myself. What are you going to have that's _yours_ if you stay here?"

"I have my friends." Keiji says, as steady as he can.

She hums. "They're their own people though."

His eyes sting, the sun is giving him a headache. "I have you."

"Not for long, dear," she says. She knows, _of course_ she knows. "Maybe a couple of years."

Frustrated, Keiji groans. "Then what should I do? I couldn't leave you,” he asks, a knot forming at the base of his throat. "I don't want to. I can't—"

"You can," she says with a certainty that shakes Keiji's very bones. "I was alone since I was a kid, and I left this place when I was fifteen, as you should have." She leans back. "And I went off alone, even your father's father left soon. And then your father didn't linger, either." Keiji finally manages to turn and meet her eyes. They're the same honey gold he remembers of his father, the one that's common to people in this archipelago, the same ones Bokuto had. "You should go, too. You, most of all, weren't meant to stay here. I'll move into town, and I'm sure you can come back to visit."

It's outrageous. Keiji could even say he doesn't make any sense.

He's never had a temper with her, even as a child, so it's surprising, even for Keiji, when he storms up the wooden staircase. 

The next thing he knows he's standing in front of his bathroom mirror, watching the water dripping down his face as blue as the sea Osamu used to tell him about stare back at him.

.

.

Being in a city that's bustling, really alive, is almost relieving. Osamu hadn't realized how much he missed this. Nohebi sure is loud and bright.

It's still not as much as he misses Akaashi.

Five days and it feels like he's a hollowed out clam— no pearl, no meat.

Osamu tugs at the heavy hood he bought before leaving the larger village on the other end of the island where he spent the last month and a half. If he got recognized in Fukurodani, it's all the more likely that he will be here and he's already seen more than one Naval officer in the half-hour he's been in it. That wouldn't be good; the gallows are the last place he wants to end up at.

It's near twilight now, and he's going to have to find a place to spend the night; hopefully he’ll find some news soon.

A small, but not overly-seedy bar catches his attention. It's still close enough to the port, so he should be able to get the information he needs, or at least a lead. 

The scene that he walks into isn't one that he's exactly unused to; there are some seedy characters along the bar, then other figures that just look like run-off-the-mill drunken regulars. The two bartenders have their shirt sleeves pulled up to their elbows. One is wiping the counter with a rag, the other is piling pint glasses on a tray, presumably to bring to a noisy table in the back, where everyone seems fairly inebriated already, at least from all the yelling. 

He sits himself on one of the vacant stools by the bartender with the rag, eying up the man's five-o-clock shadow and the fringe that covers the left side of his face. "Hi man!" He calls. "Can ya pass me a pint, please?" He asks, as politely as he can. 

"'Course, sir."

Osamu examines the other patrons as he drinks. The seedy ones seem... _too_ seedy. And the drunkards are all already nearly nodding off. 

Squinting in the lowlights, he looks the other way, at the noisy group in the back.

And promptly looks away.

Of course Suguru Daishou had to be here, of all people. Osamu didn't spot his beloved Viper out in the harbor; it must be hidden away somewhere.

So far, he hasn't spotted Osamu, but he's going to have to get out of here as soon as it's not conspicuous. "Here ya go, man," the bartender says, and Osamu decides that having come in here doesn't need to have been a total waste of time. 

"D'ya know where I can get a ship to the eastern Islands? A fast one," he asks, as quietly as he can. It hasn't been as easy as he hoped at first. The first two towns he stumbled into did not have any that would take less than a month— pleasure cruises for rich people with nothing to do but gawk at the sea.

The man looks at Osamu for a second. "Beats me," he shrugs. "Maybe ask around at the port, where the actual ships are."

"At this hour?" Osamu asks, fake indignation coating his voice. "C'mon, man. Ya must know somethin'." 

The man glares at him. "I know that things are dicey over there since the Inarizaki bastards got sunk," the man hisses. "Which is why no one with an inch of sense wants to go anywhere close to the striped sea. Even the pirates are running away from it."

"The pirates?" Osamu asks, leaning forward.

"Yeah," the man shrugs at Daishou's group on the back. "That bunch has been vacationing here for like a month, and last week, we had this creepy ship drop by. No flags, looked like it was fallin' apart."

Osamu's gaze must have gotten intense, because the man recoils. "So how d'ya know they were pirates?"

"They were lookin' for some guy, another pirate," the bartender says, nudging at Osamu's empty mug. "A pirate, I think someone said they saw 'im down in some village in the ass of the Archipelago."

Osamu follows the cue he's been given, he drains half the glass in a single gulp. "Oh? Must be some heavy stuff goin' down," Osamu gulps. "Who was askin' around for this person, d'ya know?"

A shrug. "Some weird guy with black and white hair," the man says, taking the empty glass and the coins that Osamu had left on the table a while ago. "Fuckin' pirates, ya know?"

_Kita-san._

_That must have been Kita-san_ plays on loop in Osamu's head as he hurries out of the bar. He walks over to the port, trying to match his pace to everyone else's on the boardwalk.

Of course people knew. 

Gods, that idiot Atsumu didn't think to try to send a message or something?

The high, of course, doesn't last long. Osamu has to catch up to them after all, and it took him five days to get here. 

There don't seem to be any ships in this port willing to get him back where he was, though.

After the fifth _‘maybe try your luck tomorrow,_ ’ he starts to deflate. He's only got the last few decks to walk through, and they're dark, almost deserted. A few decrepit-looking ships flank the long piers and there are fewer lanterns lit up the further he gets. 

But Osamu tries anyways, and he asks, in each one, and when there's only one left and he realizes he'd have better luck building himself a raft to get back to Fukurodani. He turns away before yelling up to see if there's someone on the ship like a lunatic.

"Hey, what the hell are ya doin' there?" Someone yells from the shadows. Osamu looks up to find the silhouette of a lookout leaning over the bowsprit. "Who are ya, some asshole spy of Daishou's?" The man yells, and then a high, lilting noise sounds from above Osamu, who is petrified. 

That voice, it's—

He doesn't have time to think though, because he's soon surrounded, hand on the sword at his hip on reflex. "Calm down, all of ya," Osamu growls. "'m not a spy, I—" He's a pirate, like the five or six men surrounding him in the near darkness. Osamu knows these odds aren't good. 

The pouch Akaashi gave him burns in the cord where it hangs from his neck.

"Rather what a spy would say," th same voice form before says again, and then there are two men descending the ship's gangway, faces lit up by a single torch. "Why don't ya drop the sword first, or else we can figure out if yer one or not when yer in little pieces."

It can't be. Osamu reaches up to tug his hood back. "Calm down, yer lettin' yer hot head get the better of ya A—"

_"Atsumu."_

.

.

When, seven days ago, Keiji came down from his floor of the cabin and sat at the foot of his Nana's bed and declared. _'I'm not leaving until you're settled in the town,'_ he truly thought it would take longer. 

Apparently, his Nana never lost the edge that got her through a continent and several island clusters on just her ability to sing, dance and cook at random inns. She immediately gave Keiji directions to a tiny studio apartment, said to have Konoha talk to the owner and handed Keiji a wad of bills just for good measure.

"That's the last of it," Konoha says, placing a tiny woven bracelet on one of the shelves. He smiles. "She's all moved in."

"And we're literally five houses away," Kaori says, peeking out of his Nana's room. "She'll have anything she needs." 

The quarters Akaashi Miyuki has chosen to spend her last years in are modest, but no less charming for it. They're in a section of a larger house, separated by some additions to the walls. A bedroom, a kitchen, a small bathroom and a shared porch on the back. "I know, you two do know that she's going to spend all her free time trying to set you up to marry, don't you?"

Konoha grins. "Worth it."

"Don't talk about me like I am some invalid," Miyuki says, walking in from the kitchen with a tray of steaming, freshly grilled fish. "If I could move the way I used to, I'd be going my own way, too." She's smiling, and she looks younger than she ever has in Keiji's memory. "And you, dear, do go to sleep after. You have an early morning."

Keiji smiles at her, still somewhat shaky, but sure all the same. "I know." 

"Hey!! We brought wine!" Calls a sing-song voice front the door. Komi and Yukie peek in, wide grins on their faces. "We know you won't have a full day to recover like us, so just a glass of the good stuff for you, Akaashi!" Yukie looks very excited about her and Komi's next trip.

All in all, it's a nice dinner, with the people he loves—minus a particular, glaring exception—eating the food he ate all his childhood, that he's eaten all his life.

The next day, Keiji lies awake in bed before dawn, going through the itinerary that he helped Osamu make before he left. Where would he be by now? At this point, wouldn't it be better to just wait? He _did_ say he was coming back and Akaashi wants to trust him; all of his heart does. 

But it might not be completely in Osamu's hands, to come back or not. 

And if Keiji doesn’t leave now, he never will.

His grandma has breakfast set out for him. She's seemed more vital these last few days, like she's stopped letting herself be taken care of. Not that she ever needed it, as Keiji found out when he realized that, even if he's leaving her half of his stash of pearls, she already had more than enough money socked away to last a few years. Keiji figures he should have known, seeing as he never lacked anything new or any sort of extravagant food she was in the mood for when he was a child— as long as one could actually get it in Fukurodani, of course.

"It's not like you won't come back, so stop wearing that worried look," she chastises, as she sets the rice and fish in front of Keiji. "And you'll bring back your pirate with you, so he can cook for both of us."

"You're as good a cook as he is," Keiji says, smiling up at her.

"Yes, but it was nice to be pampered." 

And in the end, it is she that walks him to the carriages, where Komi and Konoha are already waiting. 

There are puffy, white clouds on the horizon and Keiji adjusts the small rucksack with a few changes of clothes over his shoulder.

He's not taking much—some clothes, money, a small knife Kaori gave him with a stern face. A decent amount of pearls are hidden in a satchel at the bottom.

Keiji's always had all he needed around him; he never needed to carry his life on his back. 

"See you soon, dear," his Nana says, grinning.

Keiji just hugs her, and he hugs Komi and Konoha, too. "You find that pirate lord of yours."

"He's not a pirate lord," Keiji huffs. He climbs the little stair to the carriage— if it can even be called that way, as it's more of a wagon with a roof— and the two other people already in it. They don't have to wait long before one last hooded figure gets on.

It's a long way across the island, or maybe not, to someone who hasn't lived there for their whole life. 

After an hour, it gets tedious, looking out of the window. 

The two people who were in the wagon before Keiji are somewhat familiar to Keiji, not that he has ever talked to them, as he never has most of the people in the town. After a couple of cursory glances, he decides to focus on the other person in the wagon. 

It's a particularly tall man, his long legs are folded uncomfortably in front of him , and he's wearing a thick cloak that obscures his face and body but for the barest hint of pale skin of his chin. 

"Do you need anything?" Keiji flushes, knowing himself to have been caught. The man's voice is low and smooth, he has an accent that Keiji cannot place, something aristocratic that throws him off. "I'm talking to you." 

"Uh, Sorry—" Keiji says, as the man pulls back his hood. "I was just, you're not from around town, right?" He blurts out, because he'd know if this man was. He's tall and impossibly pale, with sandy blond hair that curls over his ears, and eyes like molten gold. No, Keiji has never seen him in his life.

The man glares at him. "No, I am not." He looks away. "I went to your town to buy some pearls, but apparently, the trade died out years ago, and I couldn't place the one person that apparently still dives for them."

"Oh, that—" Well, isn't this a lucky start, Keiji tries for a smile. "That would be me." 

The man's previously pinched expression brightens up slightly. "You wouldn't happen to have some on you, would you?" He asks. "Your village is a hassle to get to, and it would be a shame if I went back home empty handed." He holds his hand out at Keiji. "I'm Tsukishima Kei."

"Akaashi Keiji." He responds, a little wary, but somehow, Keiji doesn't feel like the man might hurt him. "And I do, how many would—"

"As many as you have," The man sucks in his lower lip. "They’re for my sister's wedding dress."

Keiji looks him over, suddenly suspicious. "I don't think you-"

"I have a friend in the port town. He'll loan me as much as I need." He smiles, tight-lipped. "We don't have to trade right now, he will be picking me up. You can make sure we're not about to trick you then."

"Oh, and what's this friend's name?" Keiji asks, curious.

The blond swallows, looking down at his hands, covered in the thick carpet. It must have been custom made, because Keiji can’t even see the edges of his trousers or his shoes. "Kuroo."

An awkward silence descends over them, and Keiji can only turn back to the window and the dusty road outside. "You shouldn't trade with him," he hears one of the other men in the wagon whisper. "He's cursed."

"You—" Keiji whips around.

Tsukishima is sitting straight up, a cocky sneer adorning his face. "I don't believe drunken fools," he says, wrinkling his nose at the man, who does, indeed, smell like alcohol. "And I don't believe in curses either, so mind your own business, rum breath."

The man backs off. "Thank you," Keiji says quietly.

"I can't stand idiots," Tsukishima says, and Keiji can't help but laugh. 

"How long were you in Fukurodani?" He asks, and Tsukishima suddenly seems all too happy to keep talking. He's been traveling all over looking for good pearls for his sister's wedding dress, apparently. They're the heirs of some fortune to the north of Karasuno. And he happens to be as interested in books as Keiji, so there's no shortage of conversation. It's a relief, because it really is a long way, they only arrive at the port town when the sun is already setting and it would have been unbearably long to be silent through the trip.

When they get off, Tsukishima leads Keiji down a well lit street, at the end of which he can see the port. "I'm meeting my friend at this bar,” he says, stopping all of a sudden and jerking his thumb at a nearby building. It looks normal, brightly lit from the inside, and full of people that do not look sketchy. 

"Oh, so—"

"There he is,” Tsukishima says suddenly, pointing at some point behind Keiji's head. 

Keiji whips around, and immediately knows who Tsukishima means. There's a tall, tan man approaching, dressed in wide-legged pants and leather boots, and despite the heat, he wears a leather overcoat that flares at his waist. His hair is in a strange, black crest, leaning towards the right side of his head and falling over the eye patch that covers his right eye, right above a wide, wicked grin. He almost looks like—

A pirate.

It's too late, though, because the moment he realizes is the moment something sweet-smelling is pressed over his nose and mouth, and he's being dragged into a narrow alley beside the cozy looking pub that he didn't even notice before. Keiji struggles, but Tsukishima is surprisingly strong, and when the shadows fall over his face, and his mind goes foggy; he knows he has lost. "Sorry, it's nothing against you," He hears Tsukishima say.

"My, did you get attached to him, Tsukki?" He hears another, deeper voice say.

"You, shut up, where's that idiot—"

"Did you guys get him?" The voice almost rouses Keiji back, but he's still breathing in the sweet darkness that's been put over his face. 

"Not…" He hears Tsukishima hesitate. "Exactly."

There's a moment of silence before anyone else speaks again. "This is a mistake, Tsukki." It's said by the same, impossible voice, but by then, Keiji's off, dreaming of Osamu's smell and the man's thick arms around him. 

.

.

At least the winds are working in his favor.

Osamu leans over the bow of the ship—the _new_ Vixen, a shiny armada ship that he still has no idea who the crew stole from— eyes fixed on the dark waters that part in its wake. "This must be _some_ guy if yer sulking so much." He hears Atsumu's voice behind him. Osamu barely has the will to look back, of course. His brother has never had any tact, he just doesn’t care. "Aww, widdle Osamu has a crush." His brother laughs don’t shrink in the slightest at Osamu's glare.

"Aren't you jus' salty because you couldn't spend more time wooing that sea warlock?" Another voice says from the shadows, and then Suna is walking towards him, too. There's a new scar on his face, just to the side of his chin, and his hair looks even more tousled than usual. "The one that, may I add, wanted nothin' to do with you."

Atsumu's face sours, and Osamu thanks the heaven's for the tact Suna has always lacked. "I was not interested in that squid-lookin' Sakusa bastard," Atsumu hisses petulantly as he comes up to lean over the railing with Osamu. "I jus' couldn't stand that stupid smirk of his. He needs to get taken down a peg, or twenty—"

Suna leans over the railing too, bony elbows on shiny wood. "Can't you see there's someone here with actual problems?" He bumps his hip into Atsumu's as he snorts. "We can make a round trip to _your_ stupid crush, after we save this Akaashi person from our actual enemies. We have time."

At the words, the admission of the fact that the bastards from the Panther likely have Keiji, Osamu's hand's grip the wood under them until his knuckles turn white. "'m gonna gut that Cat bastard, and the Owl too." He hisses. “They sank our ship an’—”

"Look, we share the sentiment," Suna starts, a spark of fire flaring to life in his hand. When Osamu looks over to him, he finds he's lighting a pipe. "We just spent all this time lookin' for you and collectin' info on those bastards. We have them down to the names, but we're not even sure that they have—"

Osamu's nostrils flare, he takes in a deep, angry breath. His temper has never been the best. "Oh, yeah, how many bastard pirates with black an' white hair d'ya know Suna?" He snaps, and even Atsumu flinches. "Cuz I know of two who'd have been lookin' for me, and since y'all never even made it down to that stupid island, I can only guess it's the Owl bastard that—"

"His name is Bokuto Koutarou," Suna recites, an Osamu freezes. “You know, just so you don’t think we’ve been laying in our laurels while you vacationed with some pearl diver.”

"Yeah, an' the other bastard is Kuroo Tetsuro," Atsumu continues, all while Osamu is having a tiny breakdown. "I know ya didn't even want to know 'bout how we almost didn’t get on the lifeboat in that fuckin' wreckage. But how do ya think we even got this ship? Those bastards aren't jus' a threat to yer boyfriend, they're our enemies. And not just ours."

Osamu turns to look at him, his breath coming in short puffs. It's probably a coincidence; a bunch of people could be called Bokuto, and he never learned the guy's first name. There’s no way that goddamned menace of a man is the plush toy Akaashi painted his Bokuto as. "Are ya tryin' ta tell me… we've got a backer?" He asks, his hands shaking. At least until Suna reaches over Atsumu and places the pipe in Osamu's hands, offering him the first drag. “I guess it explains the ship, and the— uh—” He eyes the two, shiny swords at Atsumu’s waist.

"We do. Those bastards kidnapped some rich guy's son up in Karasuno six months ago. He's payin' us a fortune to bring him back." Suna laughs, "Tsukishima-something. He was about to marry some Grand Marshall's daughter. Then, someone saw that ship in the harbor and—” He waves his hands wide. “ _Poof_."

The acrid tobacco smoke burns Osamu's throat. "An' the rich asshole didn't wanna foot the rescue?" He snorts. "Doesn't seem like he cares so much about his kid."

Atsumu laughs, snatching the pipe form his hand, it flares orange as he takes a drag. It's the only light aside from the lantern back in the watchout's tower. "Oh he paid, got a straw man for his trouble." He cackles. "So now he's pissed, enough to give us an armada ship like this one. He’s _that_ sorta rich folk. We're gettin' a lot of grub for doin' what we woulda literally been doin' anyways." Atsumu being so blasé about this whole thing only makes everything worse. Osamu is aware his brother has never met Keiji, has never seen how he smiles, has never seen him dive off a scarily high cliff and then come out of the water with a smile more precious than any pearl. “Only catch is he wants the son alive, but I’m sure we can manage that with this kinda firepower.”

"At Akaashi's expense, you mean? Now we have ta get two people away from their claws," he huffs through gritted teeth. He whips his head to the side to glare at Atsumu. “This is all yer fault, if ya hadn’t pushed for us to steal that stupid sundial—”

"Oh, think about it. It's not like they'll know he has something to do with you right off the bat," Suna tries to defuse the tension. "We might have some time."

Osamu knows they don't understand, he does, but he can't help the churning in his gut that snaps into white hot anger. "It's a shitty village with like, three streets," he says, leaning so close that he can see the freckles on Atsumu's nose, even in the dark. "And they're the stupidest people. They _hate_ him. He’s gonna get sold out before we're even close to that stupid place. And you know how the Cat bastard is—

"To be fair, we didn't find anyone who was actually there when he supposedly did _that_ to those thieves," Suna says, "But there is somethin' that might give them an edge over us. Bokuto—"

Osamu's heart sinks even further, he has every idea of what Suna’s going to say, and he doesn’t like it one bit. "Owl bastard."

"Yeah, well, he's from that shitty village too." Atsumu completes. The pipe flares to life in Osamu's hand again. “Prob’ly knows where every one of those reefs ya keep talkin’ about is.”

He's not sure if this Bokuto guy being alive it's going to be any good; well, it's no good for him, but _maybe_ it'll be for Akaashi.

And t _hat's_ what scares him the most.

_._

_._

When Keiji wakes up, the first thing he thinks is that he's never had a dream so vivid.

The smell itself is spot on; it reminds him of bonfires on the beach, with the driftwood burning blue and green from the salt, of running through the jungle path to his cabin while laughing until his belly hurt.

He nuzzles deeper into the soft pillow under him, and that's when he feels the rocking.

To anybody else, it would be imperceptible, but this is Keiji, and the sea is in his bones.

He jolts up, throwing off the thin, fresh sheet that had been laid over his body. The cabin is awash with sunlight, every color so vivid that it makes his head hurt. He blinks the sleep from his eyes, breath coming in quick puffs as everything crashes into him. The wagon, Tsukishima, the pirate. The _pirates_. "You're awake!"

The voice.

On a stool beside the narrow bed, right by where Keiji's head was just lying, there's a ghost.

Any certainty that this is real becomes shaky, and Keiji just stares.

He's never dreamed of Bokuto as a pirate before. A fisherman, sure; a baker, more than once. There was even that once he saw a naval officer out in the town and then was plagued by vivid bright dreams of his childhood crush in navy blue and white ruffles. All figments of what could have been but never was, because Bokuto _drowned_. He drowned, and the sea never so much as gave Keiji back a single piece of him.

 _Bokuto_ drowned.

And yet he's sitting here, a mirage in boots that go up to just under his knees and dark green pants that cinch at some point of his waist. The many, many belts that hang loosely around it clink and jingle with bits of metal. The white shirt under his vest is pristine, accentuating his tan skin, his bronze eyes.

He looks good, he looks healthy. "You're not really here, are you?" Keiji pants, scooting as far back on the bed as he can manage. "I'm dead or something."

Bokuto's mouth opens and closes like a fish. "'kaashi, I—" he lurches forward, bracing himself on the bed. "It’s really me. I'm not dead, I didn't die back then, it was something else." His eyes search Keiji's disbelieving face. "-How can I prove it to you?"

Keiji's lips tremble. "You can't. Anything you say is probably something I remember."

The pirate reaches out, a warm hand covers Keiji's, warm and solid, and real. "'kaashi."

This _isn't_ a dream.

This isn't a _dream_.

Bile rises up Keiji's throat, filling his chest with insurmountable anger. The next thing he knows he's lunging forward, shoving Bokuto out of his space. "You bastard," He fists the sheets so hard that it feels like he's going to gouge holes on them. "You— _bastard_! You were just out there the whole time?! Do you know how much I— How much we suffered?!" Bokuto reaches for him again, Akaashi slaps his well-meaning hands away. "I looked for you, everyday I waited and—"

His eyes sting, and he looks away, out of the windows of the cabin; the sea is a deep dark blue and in the distance he can see an island. The familiar cliffs of Fukurodani wink at him, just out of reach. Even Keiji has never swum that far.

"I didn't mean to," Bokuto says earnestly. He swiftly reaches for Keiji's shoulder, wraps a large hand around it. "We got taken by slavers. I ended up so far away, 'kaashi, it took us a year to even get free from them, and then—"

"It's been _seven_ years," Keiji hisses, shaking the hand off. "And I- I- I don't have time for this. I was going somewhere, I need to—"

There's a loud crack, and the door behind Bokuto swings open. "Oh, your friend is up." A tall, handsome man, with a mop of hair that wouldn't surprise Keiji if it was alive, speaks. It's the one he remembers form the town, right before Tsukishima knocked him out. "Tsukki swears up and down he's the one that lived with Miya, but I guess he can tell us for himself now." He has a smug air about him as he leans into the door frame, hip propped to the side. "Unless he is, of course. Then he’ll probably keep his mouth shut."

Keiji glares at him, teeth gritting. "Who says you have any right to ask me for anything?" He asks. “You’re all strangers that deceived me and kidnapped me, I don’t owe you anything.”

"Well, we might've put you up in Bo's cabin, but you're still technically our prisoner." His smirk widens. "I'm Kuroo Tetsuro, by the way." Unlike Bokuto, he's not wearing a vest, and the pants he's tucked into the leather boots— which, now that Keiji notices, have a very interesting scale pattern and are dark red. There's a heavy, golden medallion hanging over his chest. "Captain of this ship."

"This month!" Bokuto huffs at him before he looks back at Keiji. "We switch. And 'kaashi clearly wasn't involved with that foul—"

Sucking in a breath, Keiji huffs. "What do you know?" He snaps at Bokuto. "What do you care? What if I _was_?"

All this time, he's thought he'd be delighted if somehow it wasn't true that Bokuto was dead. All this time.

Except he never thought it would happen, because in his mind, Bokuto would have fought to get back to Fukurodani, to his family, to his friends, to Keiji. _His_ Bokuto would have swam through a whole ocean. This stranger in front of Keiji isn't the person that disappeared on a foggy morning seven years ago. "Because those bastards— Because they took our—" Bokuto stumbles over his words. "'kaashi, I know you're mad, but it's not that easy. Things happened that—"

"What he means," Kuroo interjects with an exasperated sigh. "Is that you’re not the only one with problems. Now, the Miya's stole a certain artifact from us after we did all the work to get it.” He clears his throat.” It’s useless to them, just a trinket. But _we_ need it, and they know that. And yet, they still stole it out from under our noses. They forced our hand, so we sunk their ship, and _still_ they wouldn’t give it back.” He looks at Bokuto, clearly conveying that he should stay silent. “We've been looking for those bastards ever since. I know you two have a lot to talk about, but if you would just tell us where Osamu and the others are—"

" _No_." Keiji says, defiant.

Bokuto seems surprised. "Akaashi, you— What?"

"Ah, so you do know." Kuroo smiles. "Well, we have time. I'm sure Bo won't mind you spending a couple more days in his room."

"Well, I do mind." Keiji huffs. "I have to go."

"To see Miya, no doubt," Kuroo quips. "Maybe we _should_ let him go." He says looking over at Bokuto, who replies with an aborted sound.

Keiji's stomach sinks, fuck. "Well, unless you _pirates_ ," he spits the word out like it's venom; quite hypocritical of him, he knows, but he can't think with Bokuto here and he needs to _think_. “Are torturing me or something, you might as well go.”

The men exchange a look, and retreat out of the door. Keiji hear an outside latch lock just after they exit.

_Fuck._

He needs to find a way to get out of here, to warn Osamu.

Keiji can't be a burden to him.

_._

_._

Now, Kei isn't a paragon of solidarity.

But then again, Akaashi seemed like a decent person while they conversed with each other in the wagon. And it's not like he has anything else to do since Bokuto and Kuroo have decided to wait around to see if the Miyas show up... or if the pearl diver spills.

Both things seem equally unlikely, but he doesn't call the shots here, and idling for a bit is nice, too.

Although, when he enters Bokuto's room— where Akaashi's been confined since he arrived— and meets a glare that could melt an arch-bishop in his boots, he thinks that maybe he should check hi s self-preservation instinct. "You're the one that's going to torture me?" The other man asks, a perfectly arched eyebrow raised at Kei. "You certainly don't look the part. You’rea better honey pot."

Kei startles; it takes him a second to bring his face back to full composure. "Aren't you a ball of sunshine," he says dryly. "If you think that badly of us, you're certainly blind." He gestures at the lavish cabin.

Akaashi— who is sitting on the bed, covers up to his waist, book in his hand— snorts. "I know Bokuto-san is a soft one, and he has always been weak to guilt," he glares harder. "But I don't trust the other guy, and you're keeping me captive, anyway. Even if you’ve given me decent bedding, you sank Osamu and his brother into the sea."

"You're a horrible judge of character." Kei huffs, more than a little offended for Kuroo's sake, but he's not about to show it. “And that wasn’t really me. Also, if the Foxes had respected the deal they had with Kuroo, they wouldn’t have ended up at the bottom of the sea.”

Defending something he doesn’t quite understand or believe in isn’t easy. Kei has never understood the choice Kuroo made to shoot at the Vixen back then. At this pace, he probably never will, so it seems all Kuroo is ever going to allow him to see is the fact that it was made out of pure desperation.

It was still stupid.

Akaashi shrugs, eyes drifting so he's looking out of the window. "Well I did fall for your ruse, so there must be some truth to that." He sighs. "Are you done? I'm not saying anything."

"And you fell for a _Miya_ ," Kei adds, all nonchalant venom. "I've never known someone so willing to throw their life away for some random pirate that abandoned them. If you ask me, I don't think he'd come even if he _knew_ we have you."

The barb is too obvious; maybe he’s losing his edge. Must be all the time away from the boring socialites that actually take offense.

Interrogation isn’t supposed to be his forte anyway, as Kuroo said that night, at the bottom of a bottle of rum; Kei’s a compass. It’s the only reason he’s still here.

"Don't." Akaashi's shoulders slump, his eyes, however are still defiant. "I hope he doesn't. I hope you all walk out of this empty-handed."

For someone who, according to what Intel Kei gathered when sneaking through that tiny village, never stepped off the island in the horizon before now, Akaashi has guts. It's a little irritating, but also somewhat admirable. "If your beloved Miya hadn't stolen from us, you wouldn't be in this situation. Are you myopic enough that knowing that doesn't give you any perspective?"

"Oh, nice, you're a hypocrite too." Akaashi mutters, blatantly eying Kei’s glasses. "And you're pirates, isn't that just how it is?"

"Even among pirates—"

"If you say something about honor I _will_ kick you." The man huffs, turning strikingly blue eyes on Kei. "Even if it gets that guy with the sea urchin hair on my back."

Kei can't help but laugh; sure, Kuroo does look like that, but it's still laughable. "They sort of kidnapped me too, you know?" He hums, it’s not technically a _lie_. "You could stop acting like they've been pulling out your fingernails."

For a moment, Akaashi hesitates, but then his glare is back in full force. "Then why don't they just let me go?!" The man snaps. "It' s been three days, and Osamu has no way of knowing I am here."

Rationality, another thing Kei can sort of admire. "Well, Bokuto has a feeling," he says, rolling his eyes to show how ridiculous he thinks it is, and Akaashi laughs, low and jaded. “And it would be a pain to return you here.”

"He has been wrong before."

"If you're so mad at him, you could stop sleeping in his bed." If anything, Kei is learning how much animosity this man is capable of. He's almost annoyed at himself at the fact that he's about to defend the Owl. "He wasn't in a position where coming back was that easy, you know? One doesn't exactly escape slavers with full pockets."

Akaashi's face scrunches up. "I know. I—"

There's a timid knock at the door before the lock clicks and it swings open. "Akaashi, please don't throw things at— Oh Tsukki, you're here," Bokuto is saying as he walks in with a tray that's laden with breakfast foods.

"Oh ho, you two are bonding?" Kuroo says, appearing behind the Owl.

"Shared experiences, I guess." Kei shrugs, even though that was not what was just happening at all.

Kuroo laughs, loud and deep, and Kei squirms on the stool he's sitting on. That laugh, it's— it does things to him he doesn't like. "Oh, c'mon, we hardly kidnapped you." He notices the way Akaashi's eyes drift to the open door behind him and carefully shuts it. "We'd barely gotten you into that carriage and you were already saying you'd play along if we got you out of Karasuno."

Behind him, Akaashi laughs again. "Not so much like me, are you?"

Kei just glowers at Kuroo.

"Oh, don't look like that, 'Kaashi," Bokuto intervenes.

An awkward pause follows, and someone clears their throat. "Yeah, you might get to be back with Miya sooner than you think," Kuroo says, and Akaashi's eyes widen.

"What?"

Kuroo's smirk grows a little wider. "Well, someone just saw them get into town. You didn’t think we’d left your village without at least one spy hanging at the edges, right?" He shrugs. "If he's not a total idiot, they'll give us the sundial and we'll be on our way."

"But he—" Akaashi clamps his mouth shut, shakes his head. "He doesn't have the sundial."

Kuroo shrugs. "His brother does. I just sent them a little message anyway, so you won't have to be around us for much longer. C'mon, Tsukki." He beckons Kei out towards the door, a wide grin on his face.

That’s as good a cue to leave as any. Akaashi looks furious, and Kei has no intention in getting attacked by a rogue pearl diver.

Bokuto has been hovering behind Kei, with the tray in his hands, for a while. He must want to talk to the pearl diver alone, so Kei takes his cue to leave with the dark-haired man.

As soon as the door swings shut behind them, Kei whispers. "I don't think we should leave them alone like that."

"I know, Bo is all torn up over it." He looks down. "He hasn't really been able to sleep."

Kei snorts. "Don't I know that," He meets Kuroo's hazel eyes for a second. "I really hope whatever you're getting back for that sundial is worth it."

It's a sore spot, between the two of them. Kei is infinitely curious about it— and a little angry too; there must be a bunch of other treasures, but apparently something very precious of Kuroo's can only be retrieved by being traded by that fucking sundial— and Kuroo closes up like a clam every time he asks. It's the same this time. "Well, we'll have it soon."

It’s not that Kei has some sort of strong moral code or anything, but for some reason, the absolute relief in Kuroo’s face makes him angry. "If your best friend doesn't break down from guilt first." He can't help but hiss.

When Kuroo looks up, he almost looks a little hurt. "Are you sure they have it?"

Kei nods.

They say he's a sort of compass, that he can find things that no one else can. It’s the whole reason Kuroo and Bokuto didn’t just drop him off at the first port they passed after Kei’s father paid his ransom. There was a scuffle at a bar after a drunken night, and Kei ended up being the only one who was able to find a certain someone in an unfamiliar town.

All he knows is that he has a feeling that Atsumu Miya has that damn sundial.

It's a tenuous reason for so many people to be suffering.

.

.

Koutarou lingers. He's been trying to talk to Akaashi for days.

Akaashi doesn't want to hear it.

"I'm sorry," he says, for the millionth time. “I really don’t want you to hate me, Akaashi. You were my best friend.”

"Well—” The person whose memory literally got Koutarou through all the long nights in that desert looks around himself. He seems small right now, defeated and worn down. “If you were really sorry," Akaashi looks up at him. "You would let me go."

Koutarou sighs. It's not that easy; even if they hadn't blown the Fox’s ship to bits, it still wouldn't be. "I can’t,” he sighs. “A lot of things happened to me. I have debts that— Kuroo helped me escape. I owe him to help with this. I promised I would." Truly, he wishes he could let Akaashi go. He even wishes he could come back into town, say hi to his friends, to his aunt and uncle, but there’s no time for that right now. Maybe someday in the future, but not right now.

"You owed us, at least a letter. Or— I don’t know, something," Akaashi says, crossing his arms over his chest as Koutarou lays the tray over his legs. "Everyone thought you were dead."

"I know! But by the time I could send it, it was too late!" He pleads. "I can't tell you everything, but— I thought you all would be fine." He really did, and he always did plan to come back. But things happened, things he couldn't just ignore. Being a continent away and then some, it always seemed to get complicated when there was a chance for him to. “You were always so strong, ‘kaashi. I didn’t think it would hurt you this much—”

“I—” Akaashi looks down, eyes shadowed, out of Koutarou’s sight. “I cared, and it really did fuck me up.” He looks up, his eyes are wet; they’re red, and Koutarou wants to bawl. “If you’re not going to let me go, at least let me be alone,” he says with finality, and pins Koutarou with a look that freezes him.

And then he realizes that perhaps any chance he had of coming back home was lost when he promised Kuroo his help and his life back in the desert.

.

.

The cabin is empty, locked up tight. Osamu still breaks in through one of the back windows— it takes climbing a palm, and some scratches— hoping he'll find Akaashi taking a nap in his bed. But he isn't there. Then he does the same thing on Miyuki's floor, without the climbing, but it's even worse; it's bare of any color— none of the well-loved figurines and knit throws he remembers seeing here remain.

"What the hell happened?" He mutters to himself, at the same time that he exits _through_ the front door. There are no signs that there was a fight or anything of the sort, but he can't help but fear the worst.

And then, of course, the worst happens.

It takes one look, one look for Osamu to know who the ship anchored beyond Akaashi's beloved reefs belongs to.

It was a mad dash here. Even with the armada ship and the wind on their side, it took almost three days of nonstop sailing. He even tried to convince Kita to take the way around the island in the ship, but without knowing where the bigger reefs were, it wasn't safe, and they would've seen the Vixen coming from miles away.

He was pretty miffed, but now they have the upper hand.

Probably.

The armada ship is flashy, and he was not subtle when he used Akaashi's pearls to buy the four less worn down horses in the port town for them to ride without rest down to Fukurodani. But there was no other way that was fast enough for Osamu.

Still, at least they're not as conspicuous as the idiots hanging around in black-as-tar ship beyond the reefs, their sails down like they're just enjoying the sunny days.

When he regroups with the others in the village, after having ran through the jungle path and back on his own, sweating in the humid ambiance, the first and only place he can think of going to is the pub.

They stand out like a sore thumb.

Konoha does not look happy.

Although, that may be because instead of one, there are now _four_ pirates standing in the middle of his family's pub.

"Ya weren't lyin'," Atsumu hollers, pacing up and down the room. "Backwater village much, how'd ya manage nearly two months here, 'Samu?"

Konoha glowers, and Osamu turns to him with an apologetic expression. "I tried to leave 'im back at the ship." He huffs. "But this was kinda time-sensitive, so—"

"What the—" Konoha glances at the other patrons, eyes narrowing. "Can’t we have this conversation somewhere else?" He asks, incensed.

As if on cue, Kaori peeks out of the kitchen. "In here," she says, uncharacteristically serious. "Now. You're scaring the other patrons."

The little kitchen that Osamu spent that last month working in seems even smaller when it's him, Atsumu, Suna and Aran, _plus_ Kaori and Konoha crammed in it. He glances around himself nervously; the other's expressions are grave. "Did somethin' happen? Akaashi isn’t at his cabin, where is—"

"Akaashi left to look for you four days ago," Konoha cuts him off. "Seriously, couldn't you two coordinate or something?" He sighs. "If we had known—"

"How would'ya have known?" Atsumu cuts in. "Are ya a seer or somethin’—"

"Shut up," Osamu hisses, and he feels like a weight has been lifted from his chest; if Akaashi left, it's unlikely the Panther's crew will find him. "Yer sure he made it out of here before that creepy ship showed up by the cliffs?" He asks, because he needs to be sure, needs to know.

"Yeah, the day before," Konoha shrugs. “He said he wanted to catch up to you before you got to the strait—"

"I never made it to the strait," Osamu replies. "Got as far as Nohebi cuz I couldn't find any ships that weren't goin' ta take the long way around."

Akaashi seriously decided to go look for him at about the same time Osamu ran into Atsumu and the others; it's just his luck. "At least he's safe. Did he say when he was gonna come back? In case he didn't…" He stares at Konoha's face. "In case he didn't find me."

"He said he'd send a letter," she shrugs. "But things take a while to get here."

"Fuck." Osamu sighs before turning around to brace himself on the chopping table. "Fuck!"

Behind him, he hears Aran step up. "Have you seen anyone suspicious around the town?" He asks. "We might as well hit them now, while they're within our reach. We can plan an ambush, but it's not gonna work if they already know we're here."

Kaori shrugs. "Well, there was this blond guy the other day, definitely not from around here." She places a finger on her chin. "But that was before Akaashi left and I haven't seen him again."

"That's descriptive," Suna grumbles from where he's leaning against the wall. "Don't you remember anything else?"

Kaori's brow scrunches up as she thinks. "Well, it's kind of—" She never gets to finish the sentence though, before three things happen at the same time. The large copper pot that belonged to Konoha and Kaori's grandmother falls down from the wall—as Atsumu has spent most of the conversation poking at it— falls down with a loud clatter. A bird squawks loudly on the palm just outside of the inn, and someone begins rapping loudly on the kitchen door.

"Kaori-san! I have a letter for yer friends!" A child's voice calls out. "Open up!"

Osamu recognizes the voice— it's one of the village children, one that is known for doing little chores for money. "What are you talking about, punk?!" She yells back, unnerved. "It's just Aki and me back here. Who even told you to bring it?"

The kid snorts. "Some guy in a leather coat. He said it was for your Fox friends, and that they were here with you!"

So much for having the upper hand. Osamu groans, throwing his head back. "This is all yer fault, ya greedy bastard," he says, turning to glare at Atsumu.

"Haven't ya ragged on me enough?" Atsumu hisses, but his hand is already on his sword. It could be a kid out there, or all of the Panther's crew. Everybody else does the same, and even Kaori grabs a knife from one of the shelves.

"I'm coming!" She calls.

It must be quite a scene, six grown people with various weapons in their hands, facing down a twelve-year old with a knocked off tooth as he holds a thick envelope out at them.

"Are these your fox friends?" The child asks, wide-eyed. "They're scary."

Atsumu leans over her and plucks the envelope from the child's hand. He tears the top off of it, too impatient to bother with the wax seal, and then takes the paper inside it out. When the envelope hits the ground, it makes a dull noise.

A familiar one.

He leans down and takes the envelope into his hands; it feels heavier than a regular envelope, and there's something lumpy inside. "Hey, 'Samu—"

But Osamu is already fishing for the thing in the envelope, and pulling out a perfectly round, opalescent pearl. "I know, 'Tsumu." He says calmly.

And then he turns around and punches the wall.

_._

_._

_Foxes._

_The pearl diver is taking a little sail with us._

_The shore in front of the cliffs. Tomorrow at dawn._

_Non-blond Miya comes alone._

_Don’t try anything stupid._

_— Kuroo Tetsuro_

.

.

All Keiji knows it that Osamu is in front of him.

He only distantly registers that he's wearing much tougher, thicker clothing than he ever did before—barring the day Keiji found him— and that there is a sword at his hip, though that's a reassurance, at least. Keiji just meets those slate grey eyes across the beach and he has to stop himself from lurching forward and impaling himself on Kuroo's sword.

Yeah, the sword in front of him.

At least there's no one around. His cabin, the only home he's known, is somewhere to his right, but he can't spare it a chance. The fact that he really cut the cord when he stepped out of his town for the very first time in his life hits him like a hammer, like the cold of the sea crashing into his face after a bad dive.

"Ya alright?" Osamu yells, taking two inadvisable steps forward. "Those bastards didn't hurt ya, did they?"

Keiji's cheeks color, and he only barely understands why. After all, he's been lying between silk sheets and eating perfectly adequate warm meals for the last few meals, but it's not like he asked for it, and he made it a point to be unhappy and angry all the time.

Kuroo stiffens behind him, and it's Tsukishima that steps forward, all poise and levelheadedness. "Leave the sundial there," he says, pointing at a nondescript point in the sand beside a rock. "And then we'll let him go. As you see Akaashi's unharmed," and then he mutters under his breath. "Not that he had anything to do with that."

Which is very much true, but Keiji resents it any ways. "I'm fine."

“'m glad!" He yells, with all the conviction he can muster, even though his knees are feeling rather like gelatin. "I'm not hurt." And he has to bite his tongue to keep himself from calling out Osamu's name. For some reason that doesn't obey logic, it doesn't seem proper to call out for him when Osamu moving closer could spell doom for both of them. Keiji is well aware of the fact that the Panther's crew is waiting just out of sight in small boats, behind the cliffs, ready for their Capitan's signal.

These are pirates. Things can go sideways at any time, and Keiji—

"' _m sorry,_ " Osamu mouths, walking forward carefully, keeping the yellow thing in his hand up, right by his head. An universal sign of surrender.

Keiji's heart is in his throat, or maybe it's in Osamu's chest.

Maybe Keiji has only known Osamu for around two months, but right now, it feels more important than his whole life.

It seems like an eternity, even though it's not a particularly long stretch of beach that Osamu is walking across. "Shouldn't yer crony be approaching with Akaashi too?" Osamu grumbles, leaning down to place the sundial beside the stone.

Kuroo laughs. "I'm sure that sundial's not going to run away, unlike your Akaashi. And it's not like we have any use for him." He grunts. "Besides, Kei here is quite delicate. I don't want him to be closer to the likes of you than he has to be. " God, this man has the whitest teeth— and the most annoying smirk— that Keiji has ever seen. "Now back away, Miya. Kei, get the sundial."

Reluctantly, Osamu does, although Keiji can tell from the way his torso leans forward and his hand goes to the sword at his hip, he's more than ready to rush forward to get him. He's tested the strength of the rope binding his wrists many times in the last hour, but he can't help but strain against it again, wincing at the feeling of rubbed-raw skin. "Patience," he hears Tsukishima mutter behind him, but the blond still doesn't ease on the light pressure of his blade right by Keiji's left kidney.

Some silent, subtle signal must pass between Tsukishima and Kuroo, because then the blond is nudging at Keiji's shoulder, walking him forward, closer to the retreating Osamu.

Closer, closer, and if it weren't for the surprisingly firm grip on his shoulder, Keiji would be running.

As soon as they reach the sundial, Tsukishima leans down to pick it up and right after, Keiji feels a tell-tale pull at his bindings. The sharp knife slices through them, and the rope falls to the floor.

He hesitates for a second, turning around to look at Tsukishima, who is already taking a tentative step backward.

Keiji turns stunned eyes back to Osamu, Osamu who has his hand outstretched.

It couldn't end like this, could it?

Keiji knows next to nothing about the world outside of this tiny island, but at the very least, he knows that disputes between pirates don't end like this.

True as that is, he can't help but feel his chest fill up with warmth as he takes the first step. There is, however, a corner of his chest that feels cold and regretful. While he still believes he was completely justified in being mad at Bokuto, maybe he shouldn't still have parted with the other man on the terms that he did.

Still, this is how it is, and Osamu is in front of him, the sea is lapping at his feet.

Keiji takes another step, and the booming sound of a musket shot sounds.

Of course it wouldn't end so easily.

It only takes a second for him to look back at Kuroo, who is clutching a bleeding shoulder, then at the somewhat concealed entrance to the jungle path out of which people— _pirates—_ are pouring through. One of them looks exactly like Atsumu, only with hair leeched of color, buffed down into a sandy blond.

And in the second he looks back, a swift, lean body is suddenly pressing into him from behind, a flash of silver by his throat. "Did your guy really have to make this so much harder?" Tsukishima grits out.

Somewhere to Keiji's right he hears Osamu yell. "Stop!"

"Oh, like your whole crew isn't hiding behind the cliffs," Keiji huffs, wiggling in the man's hold. All it earns him is Tsukishima catching his hands behind his back. "I thought you were a honey pot."

He can almost see the smirk on the blond's face. "If you think those two would let someone that useless stick around…" he snorts, and then he turns to the pirates, who are all standing there awkwardly. The one with a large hat with it's edges upturned and eyes that look more like an actual fox’s than a human’s has raised his hand, bringing them to a halt.

"Kita-san," Kuroo pants. His shirt is stained with red, but it's not spreading too fast, and he's straightened up now, only a faint grimace on his face betraying the pain he must be in. "Gods, I guess you all remain foxes after all." He almost looks apologetic when the first boat rounds the cliffs, clearly having been alerted by the gunshot. “Is it too late to say that I really don’t care to fight today?”

“Like we’d trust ya!” The one that looks like Osamu, Atsumu, Keiji figures, spits, hang tight around the hilt of his sword. “Ya blew our ship to bits, then thought there wouldn’t be any consequences!”

“I somewhat did,” Kuroo responds dryly before looking at Keiji, or better said, at the man behind him. “Kei,” he says simply, and for some reason, there’s something that resembles a plea in his eyes. It’s clear that everybody else in this beach— except for maybe Bokuto, who’s just disembarked one of the small boats and is looking fairly concerned— is missing a key piece of the puzzle to understand just what _that’s_ about.

The hand around Keiji’s wrists tightens, straining to keep it’s grip as Keiji struggles against them.

He knows that Tsukishima isn’t going to just tear his throat open. It would defeat the purpose of him grabbing onto Keiji in the first place, and he also doesn’t seem like the type. “Can’t you just let me go? You have what you want,” he whispers, gesturing down at the place where the sundial is tucked into Tsukishima’s waistband. Now that Keiji is close and can take a proper look at it, he really wonders what it is that everyone keeps making a big fuss about. It’s made of some dull metal, probably bronze, and it’s just larger than the palm of Keiji’s hand.

There are faded engravings in some language Keiji doesn’t know on the sides, but still, even some nobody from a village at the very end of the world like him knows it probably isn’t worth much.

The knife at his throat tightens, and Keiji fee ls the bite of the metal before the tang of copper from his own blood hits his nose. “Fuck,” Tsukishima hisses. “Sorry, I didn— Just stop thinking of doing something stupid! Wecan all still walk out of here—”

“Nah,” Atsumu says, taking a couple valiant steps forward. He’s still a good two meters form Keiji and Tsukishima. “All of ya bastards owe us, and we’re here to collect.” He narrows his eyes at Kuroo. “Yer not a fool. We have twice your cannons and more than enough firepower,” he says as he gestures at the musket hanging off his shoulder. “I’d start by handing off the Tsukishima bastard. Or did ya just kill him after ya got the ransom?” Kuroo looks absurdly disgusted by this. Keiji can’t help but be amused, even though he knows the _‘Tsukishima brat_ ’ is currently holding a knife to his throat.

Behind him, Tsukishima clears his throat, but before he can speak, Kuroo yells. “What’s it to you? It’s like you Foxes can’t do your own research.”

“Having been in a hurry,” the captain, Kita, yells as he steps forward. “No, we only got what we could. We had debts to settle. But ya can cut it out with the distractions, Kuroo.” His eyes slide over to Keiji and Tsukishima. “I have eyes, and who d’ya think gave us the ship? Yer mom has a good taste in portrait painters,” he says, looking straight at Tsukishima. “Yer a carbon copy of that painting in her parlor.”

Kuroo laughs, loud and a little desperate. “Alright now, you’re halluci-”

“I’m not coming back to Karasuno,” Tsukishima hisses, and his glare must be something because even Kita recoils. “You can’t make me, whoever you are. I’ll pitch myself off the side of your ship first.”

“’M afraid we’ll have to tie ya up, then—” Kita says.

Behind Keiji, Tsukishima is shaking with rage— even the hand in which he’s holding the knife.

No better time, he figures. If this goes well, the worst thing that’s going to happen is Osamu having another thing he can call Keiji crazy for.

He shifts on his feet, as if he’s shaking soreness from his plants and calves. Tsukishima is still distracted; he’s saying something, but Keiji isn’t paying attention as he lifts his leg and drives his heeled boot back into the blond’s knee and then immediately after down on his toes. It’s enough for Tsukishima to stumble, and for Keiji to turn around in his hold and push him so he falls on his ass.

His hand closes around the bit of metal in Tsukishima’s belt, and tugs.

And then realizes he only planned this up to here.

Keiji’s first instinct is to go where Osamu is, but he has at least three of the Panther’s crew between him and there, and he only has an old piece of junk made to mark the time of the day for defense. Besides, that would only make defusing the situation harder.

Something grabs on to his pant leg. Tsukishima is glaring up at him, but Keiji shakes him off, glances at the Jungle, where Osamu’s crew are standing, and he knows if he goes that way it’s just the same. Behind him there’s the sea, but Kuroo’s crew are there in their boats, so for once, it’s not Keiji’s safe haven. Unless…

There’s another option, one that would be idiotic for anyone that didn’t spend everyday of his life trekking up the narrow, treacherous path to the top of the cliffs. There, maybe Keiji could have the advantage, make them listen. So he starts for the cliffs, sundial in his hand, Tsukishima snarling, hot on his heels.

.

.

Akaashi’s alive, and beautiful, and relatively unharmed, and absolutely crazy. Osamu sees him start for the cliffs and he just knows that his reckless, absurdly sweet pearl diver is going to try to solve all of Osamu’s problems in a way that is not going to be effective on this particular crowd of people.

Because, of course, as soon as Akaashi starts running with the tall, leggy blond on his heels, everything on the beach descends into pandemonium.

He tries to catch up, but Akaashi’s fast, and he’s got some crazy guy with silver hair trying to hack at his limbs every step he takes.

And everybody else is also trying to catch up to Akaashi and Tsukishima. Even Kuroo, with his injured arm, is parrying with Kita, defending every inch of ground he gains from the man with everything he has.

Honestly, Osamu sees both sides.

If the stupid Cats didn’t blast their ship to bits, he could even be a little sympathetic towards them. There must be something very wrong for Kuroo to be so single mindedly searching for that sundial, especially seeing Keiji running like he hasn’t been in better conditions ever in his life, so clearly the occupants of the Panther aren’t particularly fond of torture.

Or maybe they are, but Bokuto had some effect on it all, and that’s why Keiji’s alright.

He thinks this just as he knocks the silver haired fucker onto his ass. He manages to run until he’s almost to the black stone of the cliffs. Once on the path he should have the advantage; he knows where all the loose stones are. And then, of course, Bokuto Koutarou barges in front of him. He looks the same as he did the last time Osamu saw him—although back then, he had no name, or history, to put to the bastard’s face— hair sculpted up into a mockery of horns, eyes blazing.

He’s a broad man, slightly more so than Osamu himself, and he’s known for being a beast in hand to hand combat. 

But so is Osamu, so he prepares his sword, bares his teeth and—

“Look, Miya, we really need that stupid sundial,” Bokuto says, with a furrowed brow as he parries the first strike. “Can’t tell you why, but what is it to you? At this pace Keiji is going to end up hurt—”

“Ya have _no_ right,” Osamu pants; Bokuto’s blows are heavy. “Ta call him by his name.”

The silver-haired man must put it all together then, because his face turns regretful. “Look, I get it, I messed up. But you and your thieving brother of all people don’t have a right to judge it. That’s for ‘kaashi only.” He huffs, retreating a couple of steps, leaving the path open for Osamu to get through. “I am sorry we blew ya guys out of the water, tho’.”

Osamu is already hurrying over to the cliffs. He can see a wounded Kuroo ahead of him, rushing up with feline grace. _Fuck_. “Tell that to the others,” he calls back to Bokuto. “Ya might’ve jus’ done me a favor.”

And gods, does he try to catch up too. Kuroo is ahead of him, Akaashi and Tsukishima even farther away. 

Still, he tries.

He reaches the top, neck and neck with Kuroo; there are others behind them, panting and cursing and—

Akaashi and Tsukishima are at the very edge of the cliff, the pearl diver keeping the sundial just out of reach. “You’re never going to find it if I drop it,” he threatens. “I can guarantee that.” He turns his eyes to Osamu’s. “Can you please get your brother and captain to listen? What was that word— parlay, right?”

“I’m not invoking a parlay!” Kuroo protests. 

“Neither am I,” says Tsukishima, straining his long limbs to get to the sundial.

Atsumu makes it to his side, panting form the climb. “And to hell if we’re acceptin’ one! Fuck all of ya bastards! ‘Samu, yer guy is delusional.”

"I'm the one that got kidnapped," Akaashi huffs, annoyed. "Shouldn't I have a little say?"

"No, ya d—" Atsumu starts arguing, even as his hand leaves his sword. 

_BANG_

It's not even that anyone shoots at anyone, just one of the Vixen's younger crew members fiddling with the musket— a weapon that Osamu knows, but he'd never even held until today— and it goes off, _loudly_ , leaving the smell of burning gunpowder lacing the air.

Akaashi startles, but he's kicked off his boots at some point along the climb, and his well-practiced toes cling to every wrinkle of the stone under him. Osamu figures that his ultimate threat would be jumping, precisely because he's also aware that it's Akaashi's bread and butter.

It does not seem to be so for Tsukishima, whose face remains in an annoyed, impatient pout until he's nearly completely horizontal, only then, when he meets Kuroo's eyes as he tumbles back through the air, does he look scared.

The Panther's captain rushing forward is something Osamu almost misses.

Because he's watching Akaashi jump after Tsukishima, too. Not one flaw to his form as he cuts through the air.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Oh no, ya don—" He hears Atsumu say, because they're twins and where one of them is being reasonable, the other one has to be completely ridiculous.

Of course, Osamu is already following, chucking his sword to the side and managing to kick off only one boot— even though he's never actually dived off the cliff, even though he knows he's much more likely to drown than Akaashi. "Don't fight!" He calls, though he can't even hear himself over the wind whistling past his ears.

This is terrifying, this is _awful;_ he can't even see any of the other three in the dark waters below.

Gods, this was a huge, huge mistake.

.

.

Tsukishima Kei does not know how to swim.

And yes, this might sound like a lie, since he's been living on a ship for the last six months, and before, he was supposed to be some cultured young master.

And he was; he can fence, he can ride a horse better than anybody.

But in swimming, he never quite got past awkwardly paddling at the surface. And he's definitely not at the surface right now. 

For some reason, he's very calm as he watches the light of the burgeoning sun get further away. Maybe it's because he swallowed a lot of saltwater when he first broke the surface, or maybe the sunlight is just bringing out so many colors in the coral formations, far to his right, that he's growing relaxed. 

The edges of his vision grow blurry, and the world goes dark.

.

.

The third time Tetsuro surfaces, he finds Miya Osamu's head also bobbing above the surface. "Where are they?" He yells above the murmur of the sea, and he can't help but be glad that it's not particularly angry today. He's a very decent swimmer, but he has his limits, and Tsukishima—

Tsukishima isn't much of a swimmer at all.

"No idea," Miya shouts, spitting out some water and wincing as he does. "I fell wrong. Yer further out, are they on the beach?"

Tetsuro squints. No, the only one on the beach is Yaku, and it'd be hard to mistake him either of those two. "No," water gets in his mouth, he chokes and spits. "Do you think—"

"Keiji doesn't— he's—" Miya shakes his head. He looks around helplessly again before his face lights up. "I know where they are," he calls, and then, like a complete head case, he starts swimming towards the cliffs, clearly hell bent on getting crushed into mush by the waves. "Ya comin'?" He says, looking back. Tetsuro just watches him for a second before he remembers the look on Tsukishima's face as he fell. "Suit yerself."

"I swear Miya, if this is a trap—" he says, sinking under the surface and following.

.

.

When Tsukishima seizes up, coughing saltwater, with his eyes bright red, Keiji can't help but sigh in relief.

The blond stares at him, wide-eyed, for a second, before taking one look at their surroundings. "Where the hell are we?" He asks, voice raspy. 

"It's a cage inside the cliffs." Keiji shrugs. "You fell close to the entrance, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to carry you up to the shore. You're heavy." He's about to add something else, when two heads pop up in the water just ahead of them, Osamu, looking worried, and Kuroo with his head plastered to his head and almost blue in the face.

"Tsukki!" he yells and they both rush to the edge.

On a corner of his mind, Keiji is aware of Kuroo rushing to Tsukishima, grabbing his hands and garbling some apology while picking the blond's hands tenderly in his. 

But it's only that corner that notices, or even cares; the rest of his mind is busy with Osamu's warm body pressed to his, with his lips on Keiji's. 

The kiss is passionate, full of longing and a little inappropriate if they'd been in public, but Keiji doesn't particularly care. He lets Osamu's tongue explore his mouth eagerly, and remembers just why he decided to leave Fukurodani in the first place.

It's only the feeling of two pairs of eyes on them that stops him, and only once he's had his fill. He shifts on the hard rock digging into his backside, and pulls back a little. "You found them very quick," he breathes into Osamu's mouth. He’s still so close that Keiji can see a couple of freckles on his nose.

"Apparently, I wasn't very subtle in yer village." Osamu chuckles. "Ev'ry one was rushin' here. Except for you, apparently."

"No," Keiji says. "I was looking for you."

Tsukishima clears his throat. He and Kuroo are definitely looking awkward a couple of meters to his and Osamu's right. "Until we kidnapped you," he rasps out.

"Sorry about that, I guess," Kuroo says, looking crestfallen. "I guess we owe you now."

"What's with the stupid sundial anyways?" Osamu asks. "'Tsumu said he stole it cuz you were so crazy about gettin' it, so he thought it was worth somethin' but it's just some stupid bauble."

"To you, maybe." Kuroo huffs. "It's important to me," he grunts. "I need it, and I don't have to tell you why. But what do you want for it? We have a ton of stuff on the ship." He's dripping water, and out of breath, and he looks absolutely desperate. Keiji almost feels sorry for him. Even if the request makes very little sense.

No, he does, actually.

Despite everything else, Kuroo isn't a bad guy, per se.

So he digs into his waistband, where he can feel the small, cold weight of the sundial. "Can you fix this mess?" Keiji asks, holding it out. "It's stupid—"

"They blew our ship up—" Osamu starts, jerking back slightly.

"And we sincerely apologize," Kuroo blurts out with an exasperated sigh. "It was not one of mine or Bo's brightest moments, but we've been looking for that thing for five years. We'll pay you for the ship, alright? As long as you give us the sundial and leave Kei alone."

There's a tense moment, where Keiji is almost afraid, except for the fact that none of them have any weapons anymore. Finally Osamu's shoulders slump, he tugs Keiji closer. "They didn't hurt ya did they?" He asks.

Keiji laughs. "Only in so far as their cook isn't as great as you are. I don’t think they’re bad, but maybe that’s just because I want to go see Nana."

Osamu's cheeks pink at the compliment. "Oh, fine. Yer gonna have to convince the others tho'. Yer lucky no one died."

The other two relax visibly, and Kuroo reaches out and takes the sundial from Keiji's extended palm. "So it's a parlay, then."

And then Osamu, holding Keiji close, just laughs. 

.

.

Koutarou finds him sitting on the beach.

Part of the deal with the Foxes— and their, frankly, terrifying armada ship— was that the Panther had to leave, and leave soon. A lot lighter than it arrived, but oh well, they got what they came here for, and they're one step closer to the goal that's taken up the better part of the last decade for Kuroo and Koutarou. "I'd really love to leave here knowing you didn't hate me."

Akaashi doesn't startle; he probably heard Koutarou coming. He's like that. "I don't hate you," he mutters, hugging his knees close to his chest. "I'm going to keep being mad for some time, though. You couldn't send a single letter?"

"I—" Koutarou keeps tripping over secrets that aren't his own, but they're still his to protect. "There wasn't a right time,” he says, sitting down a respectful distance from Akaashi. "I, uh, talked to Konoha. It was pretty rough around here too, I guess." He looks down at the waves gently lapping at the shore. "I really am sorry."

Akaashi is looking at him with those eyes that are the same color of the sea right now, a dusky, dark blue, reflecting the sun on the horizon. "I know." He tilts his head to the side, and there's a dark hickey there, probably from when he and the less annoying Miya disappeared into the cabin, claiming that they could all work out an agreement on their own and they were tired. To Koutarou, it's just a little bit sad. Once, it would have made him mad—jealous— back when all he knew was Akaashi, and his beautiful face and his eyes that had all the ocean Koutarou knew in them. "I just need to be mad for a while, I guess. And I might see you around, so..."

"You're leaving with the Vixen, then?" Koutarou asks, leaning back. Those times are gone; he's not that person anymore. And maybe there are other eyes in the back of his mind now. 

Akaashi hums. "I'd already left, after all. And Nana is faring better than I thought she would. Independence has always suited her."

Koutarou laughs. "Yeah, I remember going to the market with her when we were kids. She could haggle like no one else." 

He wants to say something else, anything, but it feels like there's nothing else that could be said. It would be cruel to push the feelings he no longer has on Akaashi. Silently, he thanks the world for the fact that his childhood friend is happy, and sits with him until the sun sets and a small boat moors on the shore with Tsukishima and Kuroo, their faces serious.

After all, there are still many places they need to go to. 

He climbs on the boat, waves goodbye, and sees Akaashi almost smile.

.

.

Pirates don't usually idle around.

So it's only five days after his brother and crew terrorize Fukurodani that they finally load up the ship and up their sails.

And Osamu gets to show Keiji his— their— cabin on the ship.

His lover is giddy and rosy cheeked from all the wine they just had at dinner with the Konohas and his grandmother at the inn. He almost stumbled out of the rowboat that brought them to the ship— giving Osmau another excuse to hold on to him because of that, so he isn't complaining— as Osmau led him there. It's not the captain's cabin, of course, but it's spacious and the lanterns hanging from the walls bathe it in a warm glow.

Akaashi grins, stepping inside first. He turns around to look at Osamu, eyes wide and filled with wonder, with life. "We have an early morning tomorrow, don't we?" He says, sitting back on the bed and playing with the strings on the front of his shirt in a way that suggests anything but rest. "Where did Kita-san say we were heading for?" The little bastard is having fun; it's obvious from the slow smile that spreads on his lips. It's not like they haven't had the chance to have alone time, but since they found each other again, neither of them has been too keen on taking his hands off of the other.

"Uh—" Osamu swallows, mouth dry as he finds his place between Keiji's spread thighs. "Itachiyama,” he says, planting a knee between Keiji's legs as he scoots up. "'Tsumu says he doesn't wanna see that warlock again, but he gets all moon-eyed when anyone mentions him, and they made some promise to the guy anyways."

"Ah." Akaashi hums, lifting a hand to cup Osamu's face. "Guess it's time we humor him, then."

Osamu's hand wraps around Akaashi's hip. "I'm goin' with ya, I don't care where or what my brother plans to do there." He leans down to place a soft kiss on Akaashi's forehead, then his nose, then his lips. "I love ya."

Akaashi smiles sweetly up at him; it's not the first time Osamu has said it. The first time was sometime after those first few days after the cave, after he fully let himself accept that even with dread about his brother and his crew's fate looming in the horizon, he'd fallen in love with the pearl diver. "Love you too," Akaashi murmurs, tugging Osamu down to kiss him again, hands already working at the belts at the pirate's waist. "Do you think I can dive over there?"

"I'm sure you could swim in the high sea, Keiji,'' Osamu says, nudging the man's arms up so he can slip off Akaashi's shirt. "Maybe we'll finally find out if yer half water-nymph or some other sea creature."

Akaashi laughs, hair already tousled. "I'm a pirate now, what else do I need to be?" His hands slip under the waist of Osamu's pants. "You should get me a tattoo. I like yours," he says, eyeing the place where Osamu's shirt reveals the leviathan. “Maybe I’ll start off with a smaller one, though.”

"'m sure we can work something out." Osamu hums against the pulse at Akaashi's throat. "Yer perfect. And never goin’ to stop surprising me, it seems."

“I hope not,” Akaashi says, and Osamu's pants are already loose, falling around his knees. “I like the way you look at me when I do.”

“I know, I like you. _All_ of you.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's my lil contribution to the Osaaka crew, I'd been wanting to write these two for so long!  
> Comments and opinions are always appreciated :D
> 
> Godspeed, Kyrye.


End file.
